Billy Joel's New Single (No, Really, He Has New Music Out In 2024...)

[Jim Alfredson]

Love the tune. Story telling in the lyrics. I agree the production leaves much to be desired. Too compressed and dark. But maybe they were going for a Billie Eilish thing? Not sure. 

[stoken6]

Agree with comments that the production is disappointing. The beautiful cello line is buried by the snare drum hitting the compressor across the main stereo bus. And pitch correction? Why?

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Montunoman 2]

Sounds great to me. I wonder why he waited so long to release a new song?

[Mididude]

11 hours ago, danskeys said:

Anyone else hear Morning Has Broken (Cat Stevens) in there during the chorus?

I heard some similarities in the rhythms of the chords on the piano (and maybe the actual chords)…can’t remember; I listened quickly yesterday.  Maybe he was influenced by Rick Wakeman’s part on that tune.  

[AnotherScott]

From Rolling Stone...

 

Quote

Joel will debut the song live at the Grammys on Sunday night. He’ll spend the rest of the year headlining baseball stadiums across the country. Stevie Nicks, Sting, and Rod Stewart are serving as opening acts at various stops. He’s also wrapping up his decade-long Madison Square Garden residency on July 25.

 

When I read he was ending his MSG residency, I figured he was retirement-bound. The last thing I expected was another big tour!

 

20 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

All that weird vocal shit and overbearing "I'm totally a rocker! Ignore the piano you see before you!" posturing. Yet when he just sits and plays songs, they're always awesome. 

 

This has long been my complaint about Paul Simon and James Taylor. As talented as they are, I feel they want to be what they're not. They can melt you with their ballads, but in their hearts, they are apparently both frustrated rockers. Maybe it's just me... after all, they have both had success with some of their rockier stuff... but to me, they sound like posers when they try to rock. Their voices just aren't meant for that.

 

18 hours ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:

I wonder if this is a Billy Joel-led project, or if the track had some other history before he got involved. 

 

I have this thought that these other guys were writing a song, and said, "Hey, you know, this sounds like a Billy Joel song, wouldn't it be a gas if we could get him to do it?" and then BJ takes it and adds a few finishing touches. 😉

 

16 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

is it just me, or does the chorus sound just like "Died In Your Arms Tonight"?

 

Every Billy Joel song has something in it that reminds you of something else. That's practically his trademark. 😉

 

I am a bit of a BJ contrarian, personally. Most people seem to prefer either his earliest stuff, or his era of biggest hits, while overall, I prefer his later albums.  The albums I listened to the most were probably The Bridge and Storm Front. I read somewhere he doesn't like The Bridge. This has come up a lot for me... with some frequency, my favorite stuff by an artist ends up being something the artist wasn't so happy with. This may help explain my own lack of commercial success. 😉

[HammondDave]

8 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

Love the tune. Story telling in the lyrics. I agree the production leaves much to be desired. Too compressed and dark. But maybe they were going for a Billie Eilish thing? Not sure. 

I am with you on that, Jim. I am just saddened that so many people on this forum find something to be negative about. Here we have one of the greatest songwriters of our time turning a corner and starts creating again. This, after his truly unexpected composing sabbatical. This is something that we should celebrate and acknowledge.
 

And the song is pretty damn good! I agree that his voice sounds great, especially considering the wear and tear of touring and his age.

 

Looking forward to hopefully a new album. 

[Shamanzarek]

A former bandmate who played on the same circuit with Billy when he was with The Hassles in the 60s told me that back then Billy sang with with a bleating vibrato that reminded him of a sheep. Maybe that was his true voice and he was able to change his singing style in later years.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

32 minutes ago, Shamanzarek said:

A former bandmate who played on the same circuit with Billy when he was with The Hassles in the 60s told me that back then Billy sang with with a bleating vibrato that reminded him of a sheep. Maybe that was his true voice and he was able to change his singing style in later years.

I think something that critics have lambasted him for, but I find to be one of his immense talents, is that he is an incredible vocal mimic. If you ever hear early live bootlegs, he was prone to busting into bits of Joe Cocker and Bruce Springsteen songs with impressions that would turn anybody's head. I think in some ways, people find his genre explorations jarring because he can't help but sing his Ray Charles-inspired songs like Ray Charles, his Beatlesque numbers like John Lennon, his Tumbleweedy tunes like early Elton. But his voice has always been an incredible instrument for its versatility.

 

You can hear some traces of the "singer-songwriter vibrato" on Piano Man and Streetlife Serenade, but it's most pronounced on the Cold Spring Harbor record, which Billy himself has largely disavowed for his lack of control over the process (and, depending on who you ask, a mastering issue that pitched up the whole thing). Still, if you want to hear young Billy Joel doing his best Paul McCartney impression and figuring his style out, it's a fascinating record with some truly great songs, like "She's Got a Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now."

[drawback]

You can add Anthony's Song (Movin' Out) to that McCartney list. Sir Paul himself was a master at altering his vocals to match a song's intent. I'd guess most songwriters fashion their song as intended for any number of other singers.

[MathOfInsects]

Yeah, I remember way back, when I still really liked him, reading this sort of dismissive comment in Rolling Stone that his voice had a (paraphrasing from memory) "indistinct warble that evokes Harry Chapin." That comment seemed off-base to me back then but I've since come around to it. Or at least "Ballad Billy Joel" has that quality.

 

"Cold Spring Harbor" Billy Joel sounded like Minny Mouse. He's explained it's because of a speed issue with the master tape, but the Hassles and Atilla records have it too, so...

 

"Ho-o-t-el, St. G-e-o-e-o-r-ge!" It sounds like Catherine Hepburn from On Golden Pond.

I think "She's Got a Way," which is originally from that album, is a stunning song. I do think he has a beautiful voice, a lot of the time.

 

In real time I followed his career as a fan pretty closely, it's just that the "bombastic" period's output hasn't aged well at all for me, and that was the same era where his stage persona got more absurd. The whole Christy Brinkley doo-wop period is an atrocity. And "We Didn't Start the Fire"???? They must play that song in the elevator in hell. In retrospect, it was probably from the alcoholism. That's why I view his (ridiculously successful) career as a tragedy. 

I do remember liking the song "Storm Front." That song that ended up as a country tune was from that record too, right? Shameless? Great pop songwriting for sure. 

James Taylor and Paul Simon both did legit start as rockers. It's always been interesting how James Taylor has sort of held on to his bad-boy indie-rocker persona while doing all that beautiful mainstream AAA singer-songwriter stuff. 

Paul Simon is IMO going to be discussed in the future alongside Gershwin and Berlin--as one of the towering popular composers of our age. Graceland did have a bit of that "new paint on the old car" cast to it, because you could sort of hear through to the Paul Simon songs underneath it, but Rhythm of the Saints was a masterwork and one of the great bits of artistic output of that or maybe any era, IMO. I found his latest (Seven Psalms) heartbreaking and gorgeous. Aging ain't for the weak.

Springsteen is hard to discuss without raising ire. Another case where there was this sort of thrilling beat-poet street minstrel giving the entire world his middle finger with every 4-hour concert, and then all of a sudden he was a 1980's style arena rocker, the same guy he'd been giving the finger to. Same with Elvis Costello. 1970's Elvis Costello would punch 2020's Elvis Costello right in the face, live on NPR during a pledge drive. Though for some reason I still give him a pass; even pledge-drive EC is cooler than everyone else somehow. 
 

[marczellm]

On 2/1/2024 at 6:20 PM, SamuelBLupowitz said:

someone leaving the pitch correction plugin on at slightly too high a level in mixing?

It has now become the standard, from aspiring artists all the way up to McCartney, Rolling Stones and now Billy. An album I worked on had the mixing engineer tell us "no out of tune note will ever leave my desk or you can get out of here". F*** that. I want to hear what they sang, not what the computer thinks they wanted to sing. Ruining the music of our time.

[BluMunk]

The more I listen to this, there more something bugs me, and am interested in the perspectives of those with maybe more finely tuned ears than me.

There seems to be almost no lyrical phrasing. Like, the words are chopped up into single-bar chunks with a space between each. It's as if each 2 or 4 beat piece was recorded separately and then pasted together. The adherence to the rhythm never wavers. He never anticipates a beat in order to make a sentence sound more human, or to drive emotion.

The most glaring moment is at 1:25 - 1:30:

The cold settles in...
It's been a long win...
ter of indiference.

It just seems like such an unsophisticated way to address that rhyme, and I can't believe that he'd settle on that reading of the line if/when he starts performing it.

Then, take the next part of the verse:

Maybe you love me
And maybe you don't
Maybe you'll learn to
And maybe you won't
You've had enough
But I won't give up
On you

If I think about 'classic Billy Joel phrasing', I'd expect that to come out more like:

Maybe you love me,
And maybe you don't.
Maybe you'll learn to and maybe you won't.
You've had enough,
But I won't give up on you.

... with the "learn to and" being even triplets and "up on" being subsequent 8th notes (well, an 8th followed by a held note on the next 8th). Right now the pause between each line, even when there's a comma in the phrase, feels just a little too long and unnatural like he couldn't maintain breath for more than a bar at a time so someone had to do some creative chopping and splicing. Or maybe that's also just part of the production style for pop music in 2024- discrete blocks that can be placed and nudged on a grid, with reverb doing the heavy lift of gluing the blocks together?

At any rate, I feel like there's something very un-Billy-Joel like about the phrasing, and I am probably chalking that up to his writing/production team. I bet this will be smashing live, but the track is really flawed in this way. It's got nostalgia, but no life.

This song is actually reminding me a lot of his own Two Thousand Years, which has a similar pulse, arrangement, and mood. Listen to this and how he approaches the text with interest, and uses phrasing and timing to communicate.
 

 

[AnotherScott]

19 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

The whole Christy Brinkley doo-wop period is an atrocity.

I'l disagree with you on that one, if you're talking about the An Innocent Man album. I thought was pretty spot-on start-to-finish. It was a clearly intentional homage to the music of his youth. A concept album, if you will. 😉 And the songs captured those styles perfectly, while still bringing originality to them. 

 

19 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

And "We Didn't Start the Fire"????

I seem to remember even he didn't like that one.

 

19 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

I do remember liking the song "Storm Front."

Very much a re-work of Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer. On "An Innocent Man," he was wearing his sources on his sleeve. But I think this was one of those try-to-slip-it-in-under-the-radar influences. That doesn't mean it's a bad song of course. I liked it. It's probably a better song than Sledgehammer. 😉

 

19 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

James Taylor and Paul Simon both did legit start as rockers.

Maybe in their bedrooms. But to the public, they got their start with Fire and Rain and Sounds of Silence.

 

Oh, about the Harry Chapin reference... maybe it's a Long Island thing, but he and BJ and Meat Loaf do share... I guess maybe I'd call it a flair for the dramatic? 🙂

[MathOfInsects]

1 hour ago, AnotherScott said:

Maybe in their bedrooms. But to the public, they got their start with Fire and Rain and Sounds of Silence.

Not at all. Simon and Garfunkel were a 50's rock n roll act named Tom and Jerry first, and James Taylor was the bad-boy long-haired rocker signed to Apple Records by George (who stole the line "Something in the way she moves" from him). Their biggest success came later, for sure, but it wasn't their "first" success. 

[o0Ampy0o]

40 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

Not at all. Simon and Garfunkel were a 50's rock n roll act named Tom and Jerry first, and James Taylor was the bad-body long-haired rocker signed to Apple Records by George (who stole the line "Something in the way she moves" from him). Their biggest success came later, for sure, but it wasn't their "first" success. 

 

What preceded Fire and Rain for JT? James Taylor a "bad-body" (? badass?). Everyone had long hair when he was signed to Apple Records. This characterization is akin to Fred Rogers being a biker gang leader. I mean its implausible that either can be rockers even uf they want to.  I think in both cases these guys (Simon and Taylor) are just trying to add some variety of energies to their library. Like you have to pick it up some and get the blood flowing so people feel they have experienced an array of emotions after their concerts. It is as much for the audience as it is for Simon and Taylor. I suspect this variety also helps when they are performing a hit for the millionth time. To hear JT do Fire and Rain in recent decades is witnessing torture. 

[Floyd Tatum]

I think this is a hoax, and on April 1st, Billy will give a press release that it's actually an AI-generated song in the style of Billy Joel.   He'll then go on to explain that he's invested in some new AI music-generating software, and this song is a plug for that software.    😁 🙂

 

[o0Ampy0o]

4 hours ago, HammondDave said:

I am with you on that, Jim. I am just saddened that so many people on this forum find something to be negative about. Here we have one of the greatest songwriters of our time turning a corner and starts creating again. This, after his truly unexpected composing sabbatical. This is something that we should celebrate and acknowledge.
 

And the song is pretty damn good! I agree that his voice sounds great, especially considering the wear and tear of touring and his age.

 

Looking forward to hopefully a new album. 

 

Every comment is just a way to present an opinion including those who step in to inject a rebellious objection to criticism. Frequently general analysis by common folks feels more like criticism especially if it is focused on your hero. 

 

That said, the thing I really dislike about the video is the style of animation used. 

[schmalex]

1 hour ago, BluMunk said:

Then, take the next part of the verse:

Maybe you love me
And maybe you don't
Maybe you'll learn to
And maybe you won't
You've had enough
But I won't give up
On you

If I think about 'classic Billy Joel phrasing', I'd expect that to come out more like:

Maybe you love me,
And maybe you don't.
Maybe you'll learn to and maybe you won't.
You've had enough,
But I won't give up on you.

I hear what you're saying, but I think he's just singing for rhythmic effect.  He's going for more of a metered poetry type reading of the lyrics than a more legato lyrical style.

[MathOfInsects]

50 minutes ago, o0Ampy0o said:

 

What preceded Fire and Rain for JT? James Taylor a "bad-body" (? badass?). Everyone had long hair when he was signed to Apple Records. This characterization is akin to Fred Rogers being a biker gang leader. I mean its implausible that either can be rockers even uf they want to.  I think in both cases these guys (Simon and Taylor) are just trying to add some variety of energies to their library. Like you have to pick it up some and get the blood flowing so people feel they have experienced an array of emotions after their concerts. It is as much for the audience as it is for Simon and Taylor. I suspect this variety also helps when they are performing a hit for the millionth time. To hear JT do Fire and Rain in recent decades is witnessing torture. 

I never would have thought this would be the thing that would inspire controversy. 

JT was signed to Apple as a rocker. There's no other way to put it. He became soft-rock James Taylor later on. (The "Taylors" below refers to him and Livingston, his brother, who were both on the upswing at the time. Livingston still plays and he teaches at Berklee now.)

[MathOfInsects]

2 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Oh, about the Harry Chapin reference... maybe it's a Long Island thing, but he and BJ and Meat Loaf do share... I guess maybe I'd call it a flair for the dramatic? 🙂

Interesting observation. I'll have to think about that. Springsteen was NJ, so maybe a regional thing. They definitely had different routes up, if that matters.

It's funny, though. Meat Loaf and Harry Chapin were basically only dramatic, and the bigger their dramatic works were, the better they seem to have held up. Somehow all that bombast made them timeless. For me (who occupies the opposite end of the spectrum from you on BJ's output), BJ's "bigger" moments are the ones that have aged the least well and sound the most dated, and his "little" songs--James, She's Got a Away, Vienna--have stood up beautifully. 

[SMcD]

13 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

Love the tune. Story telling in the lyrics. I agree the production leaves much to be desired. Too compressed and dark. But maybe they were going for a Billie Eilish thing? Not sure. 

 

 

[nursers]

Like @AnotherScott The Bridge is probably my favourite album. There's no doubt he was trying to be someone he wasn't strapping on the guitar and doing the clip below, but still loved the song. I was (am) a huge Lauper fan so I also liked his duet with her on that album.

 

On Springsteen, I agree somewhat with you @MathOfInsects about Springsteen's change in persona. I still don't get his 'Born in the USA (song) voice versus pretty much everything else he did. He used that same voice on We Are The World. He's also the first to admit his Dancing in the Dark clip is embarrassing, particularly his dancing efforts  

 

 

[AnotherScott]

54 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

Not at all. Simon and Garfunkel were a 50's rock n roll act named Tom and Jerry first, and James Taylor was the bad-body long-haired rocker signed to Apple Records by George (who stole the line "Something in the way she moves" from him). Their biggest success came later, for sure, but it wasn't their "first" success. 

I'm not sure I would call Tom and Jerry a success. More of a no-hit wonder. Okay, yeah, if I had gotten onto national TV and had a song that charted at all (interwebs says it hit #56), for me personally that would have been a success, but from a broader cultural impact perspective, well, there really wasn't any. Nobody would know of T&J today if it wasn't for the fact they were Simon and Garfunkel... and even then, few people know of T&J today. Unless maybe it's on a Trivial Pursuit card,

 

And that Rolling Stone cover was after Sweet Baby James. I looked up the article... The sub-head is "Taylor and his siblings Livingston, Kate, and Alec find soft rock hits beyond Martha's Vineyard" and goes on to characterize the style as a "personal, confessional school of songwriting which promises to supplant much of the hard rock of the Sixties."

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/james-taylor-the-first-family-of-the-new-rock-187309/

 

Maybe T&J rocked more than early S&G; maybe JT's Flying Machine rocked more than Sweet Baby James... but these guys did not initially achieve much success as rockers. They got no traction until they went soft. And to me, that's still where they're best, i.e. what their voices are best suited for. But as they say, YMMV.

[AUSSIEKEYS]

9 hours ago, Floyd Tatum said:

I think this is a hoax, and on April 1st, Billy will give a press release that it's actually an AI-generated song in the style of Billy Joel.   He'll then go on to explain that he's invested in some new AI music-generating software, and this song is a plug for that software.    😁 🙂

 

 

Hah Floyd this is the funniest thought on the whole forum for a while. 

 

It's so now that it's a thing that makes you go mmm....oh yeah far out ..why not.

 

I'd so laugh if you are a prophet on this.

[MathOfInsects]

5 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Maybe T&J rocked more than early S&G; maybe JT's Flying Machine rocked more than Sweet Baby James... but these guys did not initially achieve much success as rockers. They got no traction until they went soft. And to me, that's still where they're best, i.e. what their voices are best suited for. But as they say, YMMV.

Right, clearly. But the rock version of them didn't know they'd go on to be other versions. I was just pointing out that their first identity--as known to themselves--was as rockers. 

[o0Ampy0o]

9 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

JT was signed to Apple as a rocker. There's no other way to put it. He became soft-rock James Taylor later on. (The "Taylors" below refers to him and Livingston, his brother, who were both on the upswing at the time. Livingston still plays and he teaches at Berklee now.)

 

I have listened to and read many interviews with Taylor. I have not gotten the impression he was initially a rocker then turned to softer music. If anything there was a point when he had not found himself yet and was just doing something that wasn't folk/ballad music. It was hardly "rocker" material. Laurel Canyon, California USA post-Apple Records where David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon hung out is when their niche developed.

 

At his Apple Records audition James Taylor performed Carolina In My Mind and Something In The Way She Moves for George and Paul. Those are not "rocker" songs. They made the decision to sign him before he left the audition. Paul and George were signing the James Taylor we have known all along. The maybe "bad-boy" was addicted to heroin at the time but I doubt Paul or George had any idea. 

 

Hardly a rocker band, this is The Flying Machine. TFM failed to receive backing from a record label, never attained success, broke up and subsequently set the stage for Taylor's solo audition at Apple Records, (also, he still had yet to attain success even with Apple Records, that album became a victim of the poorly managed business of Apple Records):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MathOfInsects]

I give. Call him whatever you want. 

[nursers]

9 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

I give. Call him whatever you want. 

Late for Breakfast. There, it's settled.

[HammondDave]

15 hours ago, drawback said:

You can add Anthony's Song (Movin' Out) to that McCartney list. Sir Paul himself was a master at altering his vocals to match a song's intent. I'd guess most songwriters fashion their song as intended for any number of other singers.

For anyone who saw and heard Billy Joel performing back in the 70s, he graced his performances with a whole set of impersonations spread out during the show. I have a bootleg of one of his performances in Miami during The Stranger tour. He pulls off some impressive imitations of McCartney, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, and Joe Cocker. 

[Adan]

First reaction is to just check my own feelings because it's so weird to be hearing a new Billy Joel release in 2024.  Is this really 2024?l Unfortunately, yes. It is.

 

There's so much passion and grandeur in his voice, even still. I got chills even despite the blandness of the lyrics.

 

The over the top production comes close to ruining it.  Joel obviously doesn't need it, but I imagine that for the producers  a more minimalist production for the first new song in decades was unthinkable.

 

Speaking of BJ songs that have held up, I've been pleasantly surprised at how often people want to hear Vienna at my solo gigs (instrumental only). I love everything about that song, and it has a specificity that I think is often the hallmark of a great pop song and also that's often lacking in Joel's work, and certainly lacking from this new one, which is sort of drowning in platitudes.