BILLY JOEL: SONGS IN THE ATTIC (1981)
1) Miami 2017 (I've Seen The
Lights Go Out On Broadway); 2) Summer, Highland Falls; 3) Streetlife Serenader;
4) Los Angelinos; 5) She's Got A Way; 6) Everybody Loves You Now; 7) Say
Goodbye To Hollywood; 8) Captain Jack; 9) You're My Home; 10) The Ballad Of
Billy The Kid; 11) I've Loved These Days.
What is the more ethical choice — put out a
live album of your greatest and best-known hits, or put out a live album of
your obscurities from the vaults (or «from the attic», to be more precise)?
Maybe the most ethical choice would
be not to put out a live album at all. Concentrating on hits is too redundant
and predictable, whereas concentrating on the rarities is pretentiously vain — isn't
there a reason that they were obscure
in the first place? shouldn't one just give people what they want? isn't there
a sort of «look-at-me-how-great-I-am» mentality issue here?... and so on.
In the case of Billy Joel, whom I certainly do
not consider a «great» artist, this dilemma is even more pronounced. But I am happy to say that the concept behind Songs In The Attic — getting his «new»
audiences, turned on to him since the success of The Stranger, to get better acquainted with the man's past — is
pretty darn classily executed, by means of two things: (a) a thoughtful,
meticulous selection of material that manages to avoid most of the lows and focus
on all the highs; (b) a relative reinvention of many of these songs; formally —
to better fit Billy's format of playing with his more or less permanently
assembled band, in reality — to try to improve on the original production and
arrangement flaws wherever possible.
The reinventions are never too radical, though;
they are mostly done in the spirit of «virtual remastering», which is quite
impressive considering that these are actual live recordings. Billy's singing,
in particular, has never been better: he pays full attention to getting all the
harmonies right, and does not spare his voice any trouble — even turning it
into a snappy roar at the climactic moments of some of the tracks (ʽCaptain
Jackʼ). Meanwhile, the backing band bravely takes it upon itself to compensate
for the lack of overdubs, with David Brown's thick electric guitar tone
replacing string arrangements (ʽThe Ballad Of Billy The Kidʼ); or, sometimes,
it actually makes the arrangements denser than they used to be (ʽEverybody
Loves You Nowʼ now has a frantic acoustic strum pushing it forward, in addition
to Billy's flashy piano rolls).
As for the setlist, well, it did not manage to
shift my original disappointed feelings for ʽShe's Got A Wayʼ (a song that
feels as melodically unfinished to me as ever), but, apart from that, it is a fairly representative and solid selection from Billy's
pre-mass popularity years, very evenly distributed between his first four solo
albums (the only thing that's lacking is an ass-kicking organ grind from Attila — I mean, would it have hurt the man to throw in a ʽCalifornia
Flashʼ every once in a while, just for some good plain fun?). To keep the
concept stable, he keeps away from all the pre-Stranger hits (ʽPiano Manʼ, ʽThe Entertainerʼ) and popular tunes
such as ʽNew York State Of Mindʼ, and it helps, since Billy's hits always
tended to be selected from either his most repetitive or his corniest strata of
material.
Some fans almost literally swear by Songs In The Attic, convinced that it
is the album to succesfully prove
that Billy Joel is «The Artist», or, at least, that the album managed to
breathe a wholly new strain of life into the old songs. I would not go that
far: the essence of the songs always remains the same, no matter how many
extra piercing guitar solos David Brown prefers to add to the new ʽCaptain
Jackʼ. But if you only have room for two or three Billy Joel albums in your collection,
it goes without saying that Songs In The
Attic would be a good substitute for the entire 1971-76 period — with
mostly the best selections, and each performance either fully matching the
power of the original or slightly improving upon it, what you get here is a
comprehensive overview of the man's formative years, recorded in pristine sound
quality.
Oh, and, just in case you didn't know it, the
audiences did go wild over the old
songs; sometimes, it has to do with Billy's choice of location (at least one
show was recorded in NYC, so every time he mentions Brooklyn or any other such
place on ʽMiami 2017ʼ, the crowds go nuts), but usually, they just love him
regardless of which East Coast city he is playing in. And, for the record,
there is a shitload of different locations from which the selections (recorded
in June/July 1980) were made, but the Westernmost we ever get was Milwaukee
(Wisconsin) and St. Paul (Minnesota). (Not that Billy never played California
since relocating back to NYC, but perhaps the crowds were slightly less enthusiastic back there — especially
if he ever tried to play ʽLos Angelenosʼ to any of them).
Anyway, the popular reaction shows that at
least the people who actually went to see Billy play live were already well
familiar with his back story. But this did not prevent Songs From The Attic from still going triple platinum and reaching
an impressive (for a live album) No. 8 on the charts — and while that might be
pushing it a bit too far, it certainly agrees well with my own thumbs up
on the issue.
Check "Songs In The Attic" (CD) on Amazon
When “The Stranger” came out, I thought, “What’s the big deal?” I didn’t realize that he wasn’t all that known yet by most people. That was the point that he began to descend into corny, slickly produced smarm (“Just the Way You Are”, “Honesty”, “It’s Still Rock n’ Roll to Me”). So, this release came as a very nice surprise to me.
ReplyDeleteThese are very solid renditions of what I always thought was his best period (in a minority on that, I know). Some of the songs lack a little bit—“Captain Jack” is more effective with a fadeout than a cold ending, but one can’t do that live. “..Billy the Kid” needs its orchestral arrangement to totally make its tongue-in-cheek point. The one selection I could totally do without is “Los Angelenos”, which still seems, even in this setting, like a throwaway. He should have put in “The Entertainer”, instead, which probably was hilarious in concert.
Since the band performs on every track, the performances are consistently strong. His best release of live material.