Billy Joel

Considered at the time to be Billy Joel's answer to new wave, Glass Houses remains his most rocking album. Already a big star, Joel made plenty of AOR headway with the hits "You May Be Right," "Don't Ask Why" and "It's Still Rock & Roll To Me." The album has time for a couple of gentle moments, including the McCartneyesque "Through The Long Night."

Class Houses, Billy Joel's all-out attempt at a rock & roll album, is just about as convincing and
exciting as Linda Ronstadt's recent Mad Love, though the latter sounds a lot more game and
likable than the former ever will. Ronstadt may never understand what songwriters like
Elvis Costello and Warren Zevon are talking about, but at least she knows who they are and
that they represent something both honorable and artistic. She's not a complete... More >

From the straight-up hubba-hubba of "You May Be Right" to the Rick Wakeman ostinatos of "Sometimes a Fantasy" to the McCartneyesque melodicism of "Don't Ask Me Why" to the what-it-is of "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," it's all rock and roll to him, but to me it's closer to what pop meant before ironists and aesthetes, including yours truly, appropriated the term. Closer than any skinny-tie bands, that's for sure: gregarious, shameless, and above all profitable. Of course, if it doesn't make up in reach what it lacks in edge, ironists and aesthetes needn't notice it's there. And beyond "Sleeping With the Television On," I couldn't tell you thing one about side two, which I just played three times. (Grade - B-)