Billy Joel - An Innocent Man
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Free Music Notes for An Innocent Man
Free Music Review: The Piano Man's fifth megahit!!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
This album remained on the charts through early 1985. TELL HER ABOUT IT was this first hit from the album. In the video,Billy is a guest on a spoof of The Ed Sullivan Show. The first track,EASY MONEY was used as the theme to the movie of the same title,starring Rodney Dangerfield. The title track,another hit,later was reused on GREATEST HITS VOLUME 3,released in 1997. THE LONGEST TIME,another hit,was probably inspired by the Tymes' SO IN LOVE. THIS NIGHT is another late 50's-early 60's recording soundalike. The music in the chorus for THIS NIGHT was written by the late great classical music composer Ludwig von Beethoven. UPTOWN GIRL was written for Billy's girlfriend supermodel Christie Brinkley whom he had not yet married. She appeared in the video as a motorcycle's passenger. CHRISTIE LEE is another ode to Brinkley. CARELESS TALK is an OK song. Jazz great Toots Thielmans plays the harmonica on LEAVE A TENDER MOMENT ALONE. It sounds just like the one Stevie Wonder plays. KEEPING THE FAITH is a cool R&B song.Free Music Review: Shiksa madness -- the worst.
Hit: 1 Stars
This is where I mark Joel's decline into fatuousness (although some would put it earlier), and all because of his hooking up with model Christie Brinkley. Her effect on him was rather like Linda McCartney's on Paul McCartney -- for some reason, she made him stupid. "Tell Her About It" and especially "Uptown Girl" were his absolute nadir, made more horrible by the preceding nearly perfect albums (The Stranger, 52nd Street and Glass Houses) and one fairly good one (Nylon Curtain). To think that this drivel came from the man who wrote "Honesty," "She's Got A Way," "New York State of Mind," "My Life," and "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" is just appalling. You'd do much better with ANY of the aforementioned CD titles.Free Music Review: A Very Good CD
Hit: 4 Stars
This is a very good, consistent CD. Of the 10 tracks, I've rated all but two of them as Very Good. Those other two are rated as an Excellent and as a (merely) Good (one each). My specific track ratings are:1. Easy Money -- 4 Stars
2. Innocent Man -- 4 Stars
3. Longest Time -- 5 Stars
4. This Night -- 4 Stars
5. Tell Her About It -- 4 Stars
6. Uptown Girl -- 4 Stars
7. Careless Talk -- 4 Stars
8. Christie Lee -- 3 Stars
9. Leave a Tender Moment Alone -- 4 Stars
10. Keeping the Faith -- 4 Stars
Free Music Review: GET IT!
Hit: 5 Stars
This [an innocent man] is just fantastic, I like albums that don't sound like the times and this doesn't sound like 1983! It sounds more like 1959! I don't think much of his [Tom Jones attempt?] easy money but innocent man is a typical Joel ballad then comes the fifties stuff! The Longest time, one of my all time favourites, THis Night, a good doo wop tune [except the chorus is from LV Beethoven] Then there's the brassy [mid-sixties] Tell her about it. Back to the fifites with Uptown Girl, and the doo wop kind of Careless talk, before 50's a rocker in Christie Lee. The last two tracks are much more like 70's tunes. One of his finest albums, if you don't have it, get it! A good album to go with it is El Loco - ZZ Top, another 80's album reminiscent of the 50'sFree Music Review: Joel's Ode to the Music of His Youth
Hit: 5 Stars
An Innocent Man, Billy Joel's 1983 follow-up to the seminal Nylon Curtain, is a heartfelt tribute to the doo-wop and rhythm-n-blues based rock and roll music of the late 1950s and 60s. Its 10 songs vary in moods and tempos, ranging from the sassy "Easy Money" to the introspective title track, "An Innocent Man." This retro atmosphere is reflected not only in most of its songs; the album's front and back cover art has Billy and his band looking for all the world like a youth gang out of "West Side Story." Musically speaking, Joel's creative roots show a very eclectic set of influences. "An Innocent Man" has a pulsing bass undertone very similar to the classic doo-wop song "Under The Boardwalk," the type of romantic vocal made famous by such groups as The Platters, The Regents, and The Diamonds. "This Night," an ode to a friendship that turned into romance, not only has Frankie Valli-style vocals, but Billy Joel's love of classical music shows in its chorus, which lifts its melody from Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto. "For The Longest Time" is also in the style of classic doo-wop, down to the a capella background vocals and melodic constructions. (In fact, it was this song that inspired me to listen to real doo-wop, a genre of music that I find more stirring that what passes for pop songs today.) "Uptown Girl," which was Joel's musical Valentine to Christie Brinkley, with its poor-guy-loves-a-rich-girl storyline, Frankie Valli falsetto styling, and catchy hooks and backbeats (provided by ace drummer Liberty DeVito) is sunny and charmingly innocent.
"Leave a Tender Moment Alone" is more contemporary, or at least more "timeless." Its self-deprecating narrator paints a vivid mental image of the awkwardness we guys feel when we fall in love with a woman. "Even though I'm in love/Sometimes I get so afraid; I'll say something so wrong/Just to have something to say." How true!
To me, the heart and soul of this album is the title track. It deals with the difficulties faced when entering a relationship with someone who has been hurt in the past by former lovers. "Some people stay far away from the door," Joel observes in his opening line "if there's a chance of it opening up/They hear a voice in the hall outside/And hope that it just passes by." It's both a warning and a plea. It warns about the danger of willful self-isolation ("Some people live with the fear of a touch/in the anger of having been a fool...), while making a case for redemption ("But I've been there and if I can survive/I can keep you alive/I'm not above going through it again...").
Maybe in the raunchy era of Britney and Christina, these songs (like the doo-wop songs that inspired them) are corny and wear their heart on their sleeve. But in these uncertain times, maybe corniness and sentimentality are sorely needed.