Hard as it is to believe, once upon a time Billy Joel
\nwas a rock and roll singer instead of someone who toured with Elton
\nJohn. (Elton John was a rock star once, too, but that’s another
\nreview.) Joel’s early career — roughly from 1971-1982 — is filled
\nwith biting, incisive, acidic rock music that’s a far cry from his
\nlater adult contemporary singer-songwriter schtick. It’s a measure
\nof Joel’s genius that he does both genres equally well; but you
\nyounguns who have only heard
\nRiver Of Dreams<\/i> need a little historical awareness, and I’m
\nhere to give it to you.<\/p>\n
Because, frankly,
\nGlass Houses<\/i> rocks. The pinnacle of Joel’s angry young man
\npersona, Glass Houses is a rock and roll masterpiece, hard-hitting,
\nbiting, and crisp. The sound is minimalist; Joel was flirting with
\npunk and New Wave influences, and those notes are woven all through
\nthe CD. Production and engineering is spare and lean; even the
\nradio-friendly songs (and Glass Houses spawned four American chart
\nhits) have a certain clean elegance about them.<\/p>\n
That’s the genius of
\nGlass Houses<\/i>; the songs. Out of ten tracks on the CD, nine
\nof them are pure brilliance. “Don’t Ask Me Why” and “It’s Still
\nRock And Roll To Me” remind us of a long-ago mythic age when radio
\nprogrammers played good songs. “You May Be Right,” another chart
\nsingle, is a great piece of pop-rock. “Sometimes A Fantasy” is
\ncrystallized paranoia, driven by one of the greatest bass and drum
\nlines in music history.<\/p>\n
And you know what? Those aren’t even the best songs
\non
\nGlass Houses<\/i>. That laurel goes to “All For Leyna,” a
\nhaunting tale of romantic obsession whose keyboard intro has stayed
\nwith me for twenty-two years. Also worth noting is “Sleeping With
\nThe Television On,” where Joel almost sounds like Elvis Costello in
\nhis pissed-off stage, and the truly frightening “Close To The
\nBorderline,” about a man one straw away from a broken camel.<\/p>\n
\nGlass Houses<\/i> is the crown jewel of Billy Joel’s career as a
\nrock singer, and should not be missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5760],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37715","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-billy-joel","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37715","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37715"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}