BILLY JOEL: GLASS HOUSES (1980)
1) You May Be Right; 2)
Sometimes A Fantasy; 3) Don't Ask Me Why; 4) It's Still Rock And Roll To Me; 5)
All For Leyna; 6) I Don't Want To Be Alone; 7) Sleeping With The Television On;
8) C'Etait Toi; 9) Close To The Borderline; 10) Through The Long Night.
Another step in the right direction. This album
is usually tagged as Billy's «hard rock record» — not simply for harboring more
distorted guitar-driven pop rockers than usual, but for a general toughening-up
of the attitude. Oh look out there, he's really
gonna crash that glass house on the album sleeve, isn't he? He did crash it, didn't he? We all heard
the breaking glass at the beginning of ʽYou May Be Rightʼ, and we all saw the
resulting hole on the back sleeve photo. What an angry young man! What a punk, eh?
In reality, there is at best one or two «socially
relevant» tracks here, and that is very, very good news. The «toughness» helps
as long as it keeps Billy away from one too many lounge jazz ballads, but
Billy Joel as a public agitator, particularly in the age of punk and New Wave,
would not be a good idea at all. What Glass
Houses really is is a good old-fashioned pop rock record, reasonably well
written, almost completely free of ambitions/pretentions (maybe even more so
than 52nd Street), and containing
exactly one corny tune with sickening
potential — ʽYou Were The Oneʼ, an attempt to imitate the sentimental vibe of
the French pop scene (even including some actual singing in French, with a fairly
bad accent, as one can guess). But it's all right, too. A Billy Joel album
without a single bad Billy Joel song would be too much of a mindshaker.
ʽYou May Be Rightʼ is really just an
old-fashioned pub rocker, walking an assured line between cockiness and
catchiness, putting back the rock'n'roll ecstasy in its guitar and saxophone
solos, and, most fun of all, setting it to an electric folk-rock rhythm pattern
that recalls the Beatles circa 1965-66. ʽSometimes A Fantasyʼ follows it up
with echoey guitar and vocals that either pay tribute to the man's rockabilly
idols, or show that he has been
paying attention to New Wave, after all; on second thought, it does sound more
like the Cars than Gene Vincent. But attention or no attention, "it's
still rock'n'roll to me", the man says on the album's most anthemic track.
Three minutes of brisk guitar trot that slightly recalls the Shadows — and
proclaims that the more it changes, the more it rests the same. Cool sax solo,
nice bounce, and only a slight touch of self-righteousness at that.
The album also contains what might possibly be
Billy's finest ever stab at being Paul McCartney — the bouncy (sorry for that
word again, but Glass Houses really
keeps up this non-stop bounce for almost unreasonable periods of time!), yes,
the bouncy acoustic pop song ʽDon't Ask Me Whyʼ, which could have easily fit
on... on... well, I'm not exactly sure
on what particular McCartney album it would fit best of all (Flaming Pie?), but it's got all the
right McCartney moves. All it needs is a Paul-style falsetto to complete the
picture, but Billy no like falsetto. Oh, and the Latin piano interlude in the
middle is a little out of place, too. Still, excellent try.
Everything else is all right, I guess. There
really isn't a lot one could write about songs like ʽAll For Leynaʼ
(power-piano-pop with a mildly desperate edge), or ʽSleeping With The
Television Onʼ (Elton strikes again on the verses, but the "all night
long, all night long" chorus is a bit too bland and smooth even for
Elton's mid-1970s standards), or the album closer ʽThrough The Long Nightʼ
whose intent is to finally put you to sleep with the aid of suitably lullabyish
vocal harmonies. Not a lot, but they are all decent, adequate compositions,
well produced, as usual, by Phil Ramone and mostly concentrating on thinly
disguised stories of relationships.
Thus, another thumbs up here: nothing truly stands
out in particular (other than ʽC'Etait Toiʼ, in a bad way), but the album still forms an integral part of Billy's
winning streak, particularly now that the man has learned the secret to true
success — with his strong, but limited talents, the less important he sounds,
the better it is. The best thing about Glass
Houses is that he never really threw that stone, you know. He never even
planned to. What, did you think Billy Joel capable
of something as stupid as that? He's just doing it all for Leyna.
Check "Glass Houses" (CD) on Amazon
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Sounds like you found "Don't Ask Me Why" to be the best track on here, too. I think it's great, especially like you say for the easy pop stylings and vague Latin leanings but also the relaxed charm Joel brings to the song, not what you expected from him in his "Angry Young Man" phase. He's so flip and natural, it's like Maurice Chevalier has briefly taken possession of his body or something.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the album's fine, too. Good review.
"With his strong, but limited talents, the less important he sounds, the better it is", oooooooooh your not gonna like The Nylon Curtain, but might fall for Innocent Man.
ReplyDeleteI fear for the Nylon Curtain and Storm Front reviews. I also think that "It's My Life" sounds like Macca, maybe from the Speed of Sound era.
ReplyDeleteHard to choose between this and The Stranger (52nd St. is #3), but probably more consistent. No bad tunes while more than half are up there with BJ's greatest ever. Side two is usually overlooked even though it's got a lot of great moments. "Close to the Borderline" is my favourite apart from the obvious classics on side one.
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