Sometimes an artist’s most mature work is the one which doesn’t
\nget the most attention.<\/p>\n
Billy Joel was faced with a tough decision – after the success
\nof his album
\nAn Innocent Man<\/i> and the commercial failure of
\nThe Bridge<\/i>, he needed to re-think his musical direction. His
\nanswer:
\nStorm Front<\/i>, which has only gotten better since it was
\nreleased in 1989.<\/p>\n
The only damning moment on the album is the first single, “We
\nDidn’t Start The Fire,” where it sounds like Joel memorized the
\nentire
\nNew York Times<\/i> story morgue in an attempt to write a hit
\nsong. It was seen at the time as pompous; now it’s only damned
\nannoying. Not a good start to breaking out of a slump.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Joel makes very few of these mistakes. “That’s Not
\nHer Style” is a great slab of power-pop which has Joel and his band
\nmoving a little closer to the rock vein, a move which works.
\nFurther evidence of this success is heard in “I Go To Extremes,”
\none of the best songs Joel has ever recorded. The drums and piano
\nare almost perfectly thrown into the mix, and results in a
\nradio-friendly song.<\/p>\n
Other songs are surprise successes. One would think a song named
\nafter your child would be overbearing. However, “The Downeaster
\nAlexa” has little to do with the product of his marriage with
\nsupermodel Christie Brinkley, and more with why Joel was considered
\none of the best storytellers in music at the start of his career.
\nThis is a poignant picture of a fisherman who has given up
\neverything in order to try to earn a living for his family.
\n“Leningrad” is a stinging attack against the images each side on
\nthe Cold War painted of each other – in the haste to make each side
\nthe enemy, we forgot they were human.<\/p>\n
Even the title track, often a weak link on an album, is a decent
\ntrack – Joel’s voice is in rare form. The album’s closer, “And So
\nIt Goes,” strips it down to just Joel and his piano, and the
\nsilence of these two voices speaks volumes.<\/p>\n
In face,
\nStorm Front<\/i> only has two weak tracks. Besides “We Didn’t
\nStart The Fire,” the only throwaway track is “When In Rome” – all
\nin all, par for the course.<\/p>\n
\nStorm Front<\/i> only topped the charts for one week, his third
\nnumber one album of his career. This is definitely an album that is
\nworth picking up – it’s easily Joel’s best work ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5760],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-35646","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-billy-joel","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35646"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35646"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}