Billy Joel: worst pop singer ever?

The Worst Pop Singer Ever
Why, exactly, is Billy Joel so bad?
By Ron Rosenbaum


Saw this on the Slate a week or so ago. good analysis, and something I've been asking myself my whole life. Ron Rossenbaum does a song by song breakdown from a greatest hits record as well. Below an excerpt; click on title of this post for entire story.sj

...I'm reluctant to pick on Billy Joel. He's been subject to withering contempt from hipster types for so long that it no longer seems worth the time. Still, the mystery persists: How can he be so bad and yet so popular for so long? He's still there. You can't defend yourself with anti-B.J. shields around your brain. He still takes up the space, takes up A&R advances that would otherwise support a score of unrecognized but genuinely talented artists, singers, and songwriters, with his loathsomely insipid simulacrum of rock.

..there's always the chance we'll see another of those "career re-evaluation" essays that places like the New York Times Sunday "Arts & Leisure" section are fond of running about the Barry Manilows of the world. The kind of piece in which we'd discover that Billy's actually "gritty," "unfairly marginalized" by hipsters; that his work is profoundly expressive of late-20th-century alienation ("Captain Jack"); that his hackneyed, misogynist hymns to love are actually filled with sophisticated erotic angst; that his "distillations of disillusion," to use the patois of such pieces, over the artist's role ("Piano Man," "The Entertainer," "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," etc.) are in fact "preternaturally self-conscious," not just shallow, Holden Caulfield-esque denunciations of "phonies," but mentionable in the same breath as works by great artists.

...I decided to make a serious effort to identify the consistent qualities across Joel's "body of work" (it almost hurts to write that) that make it so meretricious, so fraudulent, so pitifully bad. And so, risking humiliation and embarrassment, I ventured to the Barnes & Noble music section and bought a four-disc set of B.J.'s "Greatest Hits," one of which was a full disc of his musings about art and music. I must admit that I also bought a copy of an album I already had—Return of the Grievous Angel, covers of Gram Parsons songs by the likes of the Cowboy Junkies and Gillian Welch, whose "Hickory Wind" is just ravishing—so the cashier might think the B.J. box was merely a gift, maybe for someone with no musical taste. Yes, reader. I couldn't bear the sneer, even for your benefit.

...let's go through the "greatest hits" chronologically and see how this "contempt thesis" works out.

First let's take "Piano Man." You can hear Joel's contempt, both for the losers at the bar he's left behind in his stellar schlock stardom and for the "entertainer-loser" (the proto-B.J.) who plays for them. Even the self-contempt he imputes to the "piano man" rings false.

"Captain Jack": Loser dresses up in poseur clothes and...

(click on title of this post for the breakdown)

um...who watches nip & tuck? and why, exactly?

What the *&^% is this? sj

The "Nip/Tuck" mutilation scene (warning: graphic):




PTC outraged by 'Nip/Tuck' self-mutilation
Time for another example of moral outrage from the Parents Television Council.

Earlier this month, the PTC was horrified that NBC accidentally showed a raised middle finger during the Golden Globes live telecast.

Today their objection is to an episode of frequent PTC target "Nip/Tuck." The scene in question, video below, "depicted a woman using an electric carving knife to cut off her own breast."

“Not content with depictions or descriptions of bestiality, incestuous necrophilia, or blood-soaked stabbings, the narcissistic sociopaths behind the production and distribution of Nip/Tuck have chosen to establish yet another low-point in the history of television," said PTC President Tim Winter, wordily. "Tuesday’s episode portrayed sickening and bloody images of a woman who takes a mastectomy into her own hands in the crowded lobby of a doctor’s office."

Okay, well, yeah. The scene is pretty revolting. And it is nice to see the PTC object to violence instead of sex or language, as is usually the case (though the inclusion of a boob in the "Tuck" scene surely helped raise PTC's twitchy antenna).

But let's be honest here.

PTC is great for reporters because they offer instant media fights, in press release form. Their stories write themselves: “A parenting group has filed a Federal Communications Commission complaint against the CW today for airing a nude scene during a telecast of 'America's Next Top Model.'"

Sounds like a big deal, right?

When, really, it’s Winter and Co. filling out a form. Thousands of TV fans, upset with various things they see on the bright screen in their dark rooms every night, fill out forms of their own the next day -- leaving comments on message boards and blogs -- to no effect. But the head of the PTC issues a press release and it becomes a news event.

For "Tuck," the PTC plans to contact each of the show's advertisers and ask "whether bloody self-mutilation with an electric carving knife is in alignment with the corporate image they wish to portray."

But don't advertisers on "Tuck" -- not to mention its viewers -- already know the show sometimes contains shocking scenes of gore?

The point isn't meant to belittle the content concerns of the PTC, or of conservative viewers -- their objection to crass, lewd, vulgar content is understandable. Complaining is their right.

But I don't know they are any different -- certainly no more important in the larger scheme of things -- than the legions of disgruntled “Grey’s Anatomy” fans annoyed by the current ridiculous storyline that has Izzie having an affair with a ghost.

What’s more upsetting, really? And what has greater bottom-line consequences for a network? Blurred nudity on "Top Model"? Or “Heroes” making no sense this season?

Unless a network is hit by a massive FCC fine (which is very rare), a show's fans are the ones who really matter -- not those who object to content they wouldn't normally watch.