Billy Joel - Still Culturally Relevant!

April 16, 2013

 

Zombies, Run! 2 Released And On Sale

 

Florida Gator Coach Recruits Players With Creepy Joker Tweets

The Feminist Comedy Of Louis C.K.

 

Billy Joel In Winter

Grantland

The conventional wisdom among music critics and smart culture thinkers is that an artist has to keep creating to stay relevant. But Billy Joel has stayed relevant — if he put out a new album next week, it would almost certainly debut at no. 1, and the support tour would surely rank among the year's highest-grossing — by not creating. For two decades, Joel's discography has remained essentially unchanged; what's different is the context in which that music is now heard. When Billy Joel was Public Enemy No. 1 among rock critics, he suffered in comparison to Springsteen in part because the artists were likened on Springsteen's terms. Springsteen consciously presented himself as part of rock's folk-based tradition, a link in a chain that included Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and Bob Dylan. Billy Joel came from the opposite tradition; he was pop, a descendent of the corporate song factories that secretly powered '50s and early-'60s rock and roll. When he tried to traverse Springsteen's cool-guy rocker turf, he resembled an off-brand, helmet-haired Elvis Costello (though the tunes were usually crackerjack).

Twenty years ago, Springsteen and Joel represented opposing sides in a debate — "authenticity" vs. "artifice" — that formed the crux of nearly every conversation about popular music. Today, this dialogue has been marginalized to the point of virtual silence. Hating Billy Joel is no longer a meaningful act; at best, it suggests that you're the sort of person who's actively annoyed by things that most people tend to like or at least tolerate.⁴ But it doesn't register as an aesthetic choice in a larger cultural argument, because most people have long since checked out of the discussion. And this has helped how Billy Joel's music is perceived. Joel's strengths — his accessibility, his knack for romantic balladry, his understated versatility in adapting to different songwriting and production styles — are no longer held against him. As far as Billy Joel's legacy is concerned, staying put has been the next best thing to dying.

How I Met Your Mother - The Longest Time

A Billy Joel cover on prime time network TV.

Today's Photo:

From Hospital Socom.

The game that never ends.