Trying to get into the music of Billy Joel

[BestShowBoi]

I've been trying to get into Billy Joel, but I don't know where to begin. Any suggestions on what album should I start with?
Cold Spring Harbor? Piano Man? Or should I go with something newer like Fantasies & Delusions. Or should I get the greatest hits and walk around from there?

[Mike Desert]

start with Attila and end with Captain Jack

[agent_jimmy]

i can't tell if this is a put on or not?

[VealCutlet]

start with Attila and end with Captain Jack

Nailed it.

[Spalding]

A couple of years ago FOT Will Stegeman, aka @betheboy took on listening and analyzing all of Joel's records as a year-long project:

http://ayearofbillyjoel.com/

[daveB from Oakland]

A couple of years ago FOT Will Stegeman, aka @betheboy took on listening and analyzing all of Joel's records as a year-long project:

http://ayearofbillyjoel.com/

Will talks about this ... project (?) ... with fellow FOT Nick Prevenas. This is a fun listen:

http://sidestreetspodcast.tumblr.com/post/97115925197/episode-029-the-pope-of-long-island-with-will

[betheboy]

A couple of years ago FOT Will Stegeman, aka @betheboy took on listening and analyzing all of Joel's records as a year-long project:

http://ayearofbillyjoel.com/

Yes, I did and it was a pretty good experience. I found a lot more to like than I expected and I came away from it with a strong interest in the guy who made the music. Yeah, some of the hits are goofy and have aged poorly but beneath that (and sometimes within that) there's more introspection and darkness than Billy Joel gets credit for.  It's not my favorite music but it's not all the disposable pop that people write it off as.  I'd be thrilled if any of you went back ad read it. Just a heads up, the blog search is garage. If you want to find a song, use the tags or use the archive feature.

My project started out as a music thing and then turned into a way for me to come to terms with deaths in the family and a lot of unresolved resentment leftover from growing up on Long Island. It's half Billy Joel and  half "I am listening to my parents favorite songs as I try  to figure out what went wrong in all of our lives." It wound up being something bigger that I intended and the guy whose music  I was writing about found out what I was doing and was very cool about the whole thing.



In the time since I've written a book version of it that is mostly new material. I still think I can find a publisher for. I'm going to see if Spike can hook me up with his agent.

[euphoriafish]

You had me at "Piano Man."

http://ayearofbillyjoel.com/post/15931832774/pianoman-song

I'm sorry for your loss. I know someone who has bar stories sort of like that and finds significant moments in music. 
That is some major coincidence that Bad Company and Piano Man played one after the other.  You really told the story well too.  The song totally does sneak up on you, then distract you with the eclectic patron descriptions, then playcate you with the inoffensive repetition of moving piano rhythms to the point that you are just resigned to its catchy inoffensiveness.

I've always been indifferent to Billy Joel's music myself.  Except for "My Life."  When I lived in Japan for a year my high school boyfriend was there in the Navy and played with a band in bars in his time off on shore.  One night he and the bass player went to karaoke with us to the sort of ideal karaoke place that has isolated rooms and all you can drink tickets.  The sort of place where some people go to practice all by themselves and reach perfect pitch to impress their friends later.  Maybe there are places like this in California but they don't exist at all in the midwest or south so I haven't had this experience since I returned to the States.

I sang "Son of a Preacher Man" like I always do because Dusty Springfield is my safe zone in karaoke since I memorized it while driving around town to a lovingly burned copy of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack from the same boyfriend who now in 2006, just before I started to sing, tapped me on the shoulder and helpfully said, "Don't screw up!"

Did I mention I have this song memorized?  I didn't forget the words, but the tap and jibe threw my pitch out and I squeaked my way through the "someone's nonmusical girlfriend"-est rendition I'd ever done.  When I finished, the Japanese bass player my boyfriend was friends with said I did a great job.  And I thanked him, but this was only one step better than the night I sang Pulp's "Common People" and got tapped on the shoulder by an elderly stranger who said, "Wow, I had NO IDEA where that was coming from!"

After praising me for the impassioned squeaky alto vocals, the bass player got up and proceded to sing "My Life."  I had been told eariler this guy was a huge Billy Joel fan but I was impressed nonetheless.  He was pitch perfect and put a lot of energy into it.  The only thing odd was that he used so much vibrato and had a slightly higher and thinner tenor voice. 

I never listen to this song but I found myself memorizing it on the first hear.  Just like "Piano Man" in the story above, it stands as a symbol to this day of that group of people and a defining moment in my own life.  I'm not as cool and don't travel anymore and karaoke is less convenient and more scary.  But that's still the best Billy Joel song I know.

[Denim Gremlin]

I tried like a year ago, my old band and I were trying to start this project where we'd devote time every month or two to getting to know about a band or artist then eventually cover some of their songs hoping it would be an on going thing were we could release little EP's of covers as an on going thing. literally the second time we tried it, someone suggested Billy Joel and it totally imploded. Billy Joel is the worst, I dig that Atilla record though.