Over at The Atlantic, Adam Chandler describes the scene at a Billy Joel concert:
A mother tries to cajole her reluctant young son to twist with her to “Only the Good Die Young.” A 45-year-old man in a Billy Joel-themed softball jersey, sitting third row and visible to all, hoists aloft a New Jersey vanity license plate that reads “Joel FN” and uses it to air-drum to “Pressure.” Three 20-somethings on a ladies’ night out shoot a Boomerang of themselves swaying to “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.” A sexagenarian in business attire uses a lull during Joel’s Perestroika-era ditty “Leningrad” to crush some work emails on his BlackBerry Priv. A 19,000-strong congregation—carpenter jeans and Cartier watches, Yankee caps and yarmulkes, generationally diffuse and racially homogenous—all dance, terribly and euphorically, to “Uptown Girl.”
I was, for a time, a professional musician. My first paid writing gig was as a music critic. So you can imagine how insufferably arrogant and condescending I can be whenever the topic of music comes up. And when it concerns the relative merits of overrated pop stars, well…I can be a real ass. (I’m working on it. I swear.)
What’s my point? Just that Chandler has me re-thinking—and questioning—my visceral dislike of Billy Joel. Check this out:
What helps explain Billy Joel’s recent feats (and makes them all the more impressive) is the fact that he has managed to become a commercial juggernaut in two different eras of the music industry; first, when record sales determined everything and later, as tour earnings supplanted sales as the biggest lever of an artist’s financial success.…[O]f Joel’s 121 recorded songs over a quarter of them (33!) became Top 40 hits. Billy Joel has, believe it or not, sold more records in the United States than either Michael Jackson or Madonna.
He’s also sold out Madison Square Garden 40 times since 2014, despite the fact that he hasn’t released a new pop album in 24 years. Now, popularity is certainly not an indicator of talent or ability; nor is it a bellwether of musical or historical significance. But Joel shouldn’t be dismissed simply because he’s popular, either. Something’s going on here.
As for me, while I can’t exactly commit to buying any of his albums any time soon, I can try to not change channels the next time a Billy Joel song comes on the radio. Heck, I might even actually listen to it. Just…don’t tell anyone, mmmkay?
