NY Mag's Ranking of Every Billy Joel Song

Wait, he dated Elle McPherson before Christie Brinkley? Just goes to show, you don't need to be that good looking to date supermodels, you just need a world-class pianist.

 

Seems like a lot of the criticism was directed at Phil Ramone or the other producers. "Scenes" is probably the best Joel song in terms of encompassing who he is as a songwriter. Piano Man is about him. Big fan of the B side of 52nd. St. A side not so much.

 

What you really need is a world-class bank account.

 

I'm pretty hit-and-miss on Billy Joel. Love "The Stranger" and "52nd Street," hated his retro album although "Uptown Girl" is kind of catchy. "Pressure" is an underrated song, and I liked his new-wave nods on "Glass Houses."

 

I agree with almost all this, though I don't like You May Be Right as much as you do.

I would probably put Summer Highland Falls, I've Loved These Days & Miami 2017 as #1-3.

Was happy to see him appreciate some that I thought are underappreciated, like Sleeping with the Television On, I Don't Want to Be Alone Anymore & Stiletto.

Would have likes to see We Didn't Start the Fire last, because it was so upsetting from someone who clearly takes music seriously, but 2nd last is pretty good.
Also too low:
All You Want to Do is Dance - not that bad
Getting Closer, Running on Ice & Matter of Trust - The Bridge was an underrated album
You're My Home, Souvenir, Lullaby and especially And So it Goes - I'm a sucker for his slow stuff
Pressure - Overplayed & annoying by now, but too low at 70
You're Only Human
Sometimes a Fantasy - I like Glasshouses much more than he did
James & Rosalinda's Eyes

 

Glass Houses was so underrated. His snark was made for New Wave. I really dig all but about one or two songs. Scenes From an Italian Restaurant and the title track are about the only songs off The Stranger that have aged particularly well, though I still like Movin' Out. 52nd Street is best listened to as a whole, not one or two songs at a time. Much better than the sum of its parts. The Nylon Curtain seemed forced, but Goodnight Saigon was pretty good.

 

Overall, I thought the list was a good effort. With that many songs, everyone is bound to find some rankings they strongly disagree with.
Scenes From an ItalianRestaurant is my favorite Billy Joel song, so I was glad to see it at the top. When I played tenor sax in high school, I literally wore out my tape of The Stranger album trying to learn the sax solo. Plus I love the story of how The Ballad of Brenda and Eddy morphed into the final product.
I think some of the tracks off River of Dreams are way underrated, especially All About Soul. Perhaps the fact the person Billy wrote the song about wasn't standing tomorrow had something to do with it.
My personal top-10 list would look something like this:

Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
Through the Long Night
Until the Night
All About Soul
I Go To Extremes (live version only, since he plays piano with his butt better than most play piano with their hands)
Close to the Borderline
The Entertainer
The Stranger
Only the Good Die Young
No Man's Land

I was thinking this morning how similar River of Dreams is in some ways to Don Henley's Inside Job. Both final studio albums for both, both start with FU songs, both have a couple of really bitter songs, both end with farewell to this stage of my life songs.

 

I'll admit to liking We Didn't Start the Fire. I completely understand why it annoys so many people, but for me it came out when I was too young to be a music snob, but history was my favorite class in school, other than gym. It was cool that somebody put that stuff to music that way and I could hear it on the radio with other hit songs. I enjoyed looking up or asking my parents about the lines I didn't get.

I hear it now and it takes me back to childhood, which is fun.

 

Fair enough. It came out when I was fairly young as well, and I enjoyed it as pretty catchy pop tune and for the same reasons as you. But now that I'm older and more familiar with Joel's work, I just think it's terrible. Plenty of other better songs to take me back to my younger days.

 

Just finished the new biography that came out on Joel, and had a couple of hilarious stories about that time. Sorry if it's a spoiler.

First is, when he met McPherson and Brinkley at a bar at some Caribbean resort, he's wowing them by playing the piano at some beachfront open bar, and as he's doing that, there's some 16-year-old who was with the women on the trip who was bugging the shit out of him about music-related questions. Turns out it was Whitney Houston.

Second one, after he's done dating McPherson and starts getting involved with Brinkley, there was a time when he and Brinkley went back to his place after a night out, and the doorman had let in McPherson while they were gone. So he's standing in his apartment overlooking Central Park, with maybe the 2 most beautiful women in the world, and he stutters and stammers until they both leave. Then all he could think to himself was, "Shit, if it was Sinatra here, he'd be having a threesome with them right now."

And FTR, I'll take Summer, Highland Falls as No. 1, then And So It Goes and I Go To Extremes to round out the top three.

 

I think this whole enterprise is an elaborate troll of all the endless 'lists' we get of 'greatest songs' for the Beatles, Stones, Who, Bruce, etc etc.