{"id":47484,"date":"2007-02-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/billy-joel-retrospective\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:58:18","slug":"billy-joel-retrospective","status":"publish","type":"feature","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/billy-joel-retrospective\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Joel Retrospective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/billyjoel_cold_150.jpg\" alt=\"billyjoel_cold_150\" height=\"150\" title=\"billyjoel_cold_150\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/billyjoel_piano_150.jpg\" alt=\"billyjoel_piano_150\" height=\"150\" title=\"billyjoel_piano_150\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/billyjoel_thestranger.jpg\" alt=\"billyjoel_thestranger\" height=\"150\" style=\"width: 150px; height: 150px\" title=\"billyjoel_thestranger\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/billyjoel_52nd_150.jpg\" alt=\"billyjoel_52nd_150\" height=\"150\" title=\"billyjoel_52nd_150\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">He has sold millions of records, had a plethora of hit singles and had a Broadway show written based on his music. Yet Billy Joel has never been a critics&#8217; favorite <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">The Daily Vault will do our small part to rectify that situation by naming Joel as our February Artist of the Month. <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Very much a New Yorker, Joel was born on <place><\/place>Long Island and learned piano as a child. A rebellious streak fueled his interest in boxing and street gangs, but the love of piano never died and Joel decided to pursue music as a career after seeing the Beatles on the <i>Ed Sullivan Show.<\/i><i> <\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">This fusion of pop and Broadway formed the basis of much of Joel&#8217;s work, which got its start with his debut <em>Cold Spring Harbor<\/em> in 1971. The album and tour were not well-received, but two years later Joel rebounded with <em>Piano Man<\/em>, which began a string of chart hits and classic albums such as <em>The Stranger<\/em>, <em>52nd Street<\/em> and <em>Glass Houses<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">A short break followed, during which Joel lashed out at critics who called his music lightweight and lacking soul, answering with the serious-minded <em>The Nylon Curtain<\/em> and follow with\u00a01983&#8217;s r&#038;b and doo-wop-heavy blockbuster <em>An Innocent <state><\/state><place><\/place>Man<\/em>. The disc, much of which was an ode to then-girlfriend Christie Brinkley, sold more than seven million copies and spawned several hit singles. A period of silence followed, with Joel&#8217;s last classic album, <em>Storm Front<\/em>, coming in 1989. At the end of 1991, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honored Joel with a Grammy Living Legend award.\u00a0 In recent years Joel has composed a classical piano album, and toured intermittently, often co-headlining with Elton John. The Vault will review each of Joel&#8217;s studio albums and throw in some surprises along the way. Many of the reviews will appear on the site for the first time. <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Founded in January 1997, the Daily Vault has featured thousands of reviews from artists covering almost the entire musical spectrum, written by a volunteer review staff from around the world. Previous Artist Of The Month retrospectives have spotlighted the work of artists from Tori Amos to Frank Zappa, including <place><\/place><placename><\/placename>Garth <placetype><\/placetype>Brooks, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and many others. Themed retrospectives have focused on punk, hip-hop, female singer-songwriters and dynamic debuts.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/billyjoel_nylon.jpg\" alt=\"billyjoel_nylon\" height=\"150\" style=\"width: 150px; height: 150px\" title=\"billyjoel_nylon\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/billyjoel_innocent_150.jpg\" alt=\"billyjoel_innocent_150\" height=\"150\" title=\"billyjoel_innocent_150\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/billyjoel_storm.jpg\" alt=\"billyjoel_storm\" height=\"150\" style=\"width: 150px; height: 150px\" title=\"billyjoel_storm\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/billyjoel_12_150.jpg\" alt=\"billyjoel_12_150\" height=\"150\" title=\"billyjoel_12_150\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He has sold millions of records, had a plethora of hit singles and had a Broadway show written based on his music. Yet Billy Joel has never been a critics&#8217; favorite The Daily Vault will do our small part to rectify that situation by naming Joel as our February Artist of the Month. Very much [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":50942,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"feature_type":[5608],"class_list":["post-47484","feature","type-feature","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","feature_type-announcement"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature\/47484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/feature"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"feature_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature_type?post=47484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}