OT - What makes me hate Billy Joel?

[Bosco]

So what kind of music are all you anti-Billy Joel people into? He's not my favorite and I wouldn't consider myself a fan, but he's not terrible by an stretch.

[BigJohn&TheLions]

I like his older stuff. Come on, it's hilarious that Hillary Clinton meant to play NY State of Mind when kicking off her senate campaign, but they cued up Captain Jack accidentally...

And how can you not like Roberta, a love song to a prostitute!

Everything from Uptown Girl and after really does suck rat ass though...

[korme]

Hellz yeah that completes that earlier Captain Jack reference with the mention of Hilary.

[Buddy Grant]

Originally Posted by Bosco

So what kind of music are all you anti-Billy Joel people into? He's not my favorite and I wouldn't consider myself a fan, but he's not terrible by an stretch.

I'm not an anti-Billy Joel person, I look at his music like I would advertising jingles, no love or hate, simply disdain. I am an anti-Clay Aiken person though.

[korme]

MR BOJANGLES?

[33sherman]

This thread is really interesting to me because I too hate Billy Joel and can't explain why. I actually think he's a really good songwriter in many respects, and he's never done anything as a celebrity that's pissed me off, but I'd still be ashamed to own even one of his albums.

A lot of people hate Bruce Springsteen because he's 'uncool' or something, but I'd go the mat for Bruce any day, even though I consider Springsteen to be a much bigger phony than Billy Joel.

[yabanci]

<-------- wonders how long it will be before somebody starts a new thread called "OT: What makes Billy Joel hate me?"

[Bosco]

Originally Posted by Buddy Grant

I'm not an anti-Billy Joel person, I look at his music like I would advertising jingles, no love or hate, simply disdain. I am an anti-Clay Aiken person though.

So what do you listen to?

[Bonegavel]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

That's pretty much me, too. I'd actualy say that Allentown could have been a song that I'd really like - were it not by him. ::shiver::

Living in Allentown, you could only imagine how it wouldn't really matter.

[Bonegavel]

I have found that Bruce Springsteen is my Quiksand's Billy Joel. When I hear the Boss, I want to break the radio. I can't explain it either. Once in a while i catch myself humming to one of his songs on the radio and when it dawns on me I get angry and switch the station.

I will admit, however, that uptown girl and it's ilk were ok to me in my teens during the 80s, but nowadays they make me visibly agitated and I do think that BJ is a very talented song writer. FWIW, Downeaster Alexa has always pissed me off.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by AgPete

muwahahahaahahahah

Artist: Billy Joel
Song: We Didnt Start The Fire

Lyrics:

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe


Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye


Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye


CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it


Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser aand Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc


Roy hn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, Rock Around the Clock


Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland


Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, trouble in the Suez


CHORUS


Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge on the River Kwai


Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide


Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go


U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo


CHORUS


Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion


Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson


Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say


CHORUS


Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodsto, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan


Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore


CHORUS


We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

I can sing along to the whole song

[yabanci]

I'm in love with an uptown girl.

[FishFan]

Billy Joel and Elton John together in concert may have been one of the best shows I have seen in my lifetime. That one and James Taylor...

[Craptacular]

Would have loved to see that show, but I wasn't about to pay the ridiculous ticket prices for it. I like Elton's music a lot more than Billy's, but I heard it was a great show by both.

[SackAttack]

I would've paid the ticket prices, but the one time it was in LA (that I noticed), it was sold out

[digamma]

Everytime I see this thread on the front page of the forums, it cuts off the "Joel." I keep hoping it is a "Why do I hate Billy Packer?" thread.

Oh, let me count the ways.

[korme]

JAMES TAYLOR IS THE SHIZNIT

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by Buddy Grant

Top 10 Reasons Why Billy Joel Does Not Rule
1. Billy Joel in his heyday was the type of pop entertainer your Sunday School teacher would listen to.
2. His music was depressing, so depressing that even if you liked Joel when he had the hits, you probably don't want to admit that or even remember those songs today.
3. The person that gave you a Billy Joel album for Christmas tended to be the person most out of touch with what young people liked and were listening too (I suspect a large portion of his album sales were to Grandparents who wanted to surprise their niece).
4. Unlike most pop stars, Billy Joel always looked about 10-15 years older than he really was. I imagine that was to better sell his image to the grandparent types mentioned in reason #3.
5. He looked like a beat walking policeman. I mean it is not nice to make fun of the way people look but come on, seriously, WTF.
6. Besides the out of touch grandparents in reason #3, the next biggest purchaser of Billy Joel albums must have been piano players that already had every Carpenters and Captain & Tenille album.
7. Music is a subjective thing. That being said, most of Billy Joel's songs were total shit.
8. His performances were depressing and boring. Most piano players acknowledge that watching someone play the piano is one of the most boring tasks you will encounter in life, and they go to great measures to try to distract you with either funny sunglasses (Elton John) or by playing the piano with their elbow (John Lennon) or feet (Jerry Lee Lewis). Billy Joel did not do any of those things. He just got over-the-top-emotional-artist who-looks-like-they-are-trying to-push-out-a-stubborn-bowel-movement. All the while looking like a cop, and sweating profusely, always with the profuse sweating.
9. When the piano teachers and grandparents had purchased all his albums already and sales began to fade he did not bow out gracefully, he forced one of the worst songs ever written on people as a bitter "fuck you" to the world: "We Didn't Start The Fire". No, I started the god damn fire. I did it because I thought Billy Joel was still in the stupid glass house!
10. In a desperate attempt to appeal to customers under the age of 55 he made an album with Cyndi Lauper.

Bonus reason: He made elevator music before there even was such a thing - just listen to his hit "Just The Way You Are" if you don't believe me.

Classic.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Shorty3281

JAMES TAYLOR IS THE SHIZNIT

Seeing James Taylor nowadays freaks me out. Whenever I see him or Paul Simon I get very scared about ageing.

[condors]

ksyrup-billy joel was not a poor boy,

William Martin Joel, born May 9, 1949, in The Bronx, NY, grew up in a comfortable Long Island suburb, Levittown

he was taking piano lessons at 4. My family couldn't afford a piano or lessons (and i don't think i was desitute) i don't want to hear about his "tough childhood" that he forces on me with his songs

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

I can't shake the feeling that this entire thread is a QuikSand experiment.

I bet I can post any random observation at FOFC, and dozens of posters will fall over each other to be the first to say "me too!". Let's test this hypothesis...

I kind of wondered the same thing. No offense Quiksand, yours are defintely that most thought out and insightful posts on the board. But I wonder had someone else posted that same thing if they would have gotten more "He is a 95 platnum recored recording artist! Lay off the guy!"

Personally, I like a lot of his music. I always found his music (and Elton John and James Taylor) are good compromises when taking a long road trip with a girl. It would be hard to start blasting the Black Album and not cause some sort of controversy. (now if I am coming back and am looking to piss her off, this may be the way to go )

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Buddy Grant

8. His performances were depressing and boring. Most piano players acknowledge that watching someone play the piano is one of the most boring tasks you will encounter in life

True for the most part, save the exception of one Ben Folds.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by mckerney

True for the most part, save the exception of one Ben Folds.

Or the late Victor Borge.

(Liberace could be pretty entertaining in his own right....)

[Pyser]

Originally Posted by Fritz

he's a fucking pianist. thats it. Rock and roll people need to play guitar or something. If you are a pianist, you are nothing more than a 2 bit lounge monkey that made good.

as a ben folds fan, i object to this statement.


point may be ignored though, as i dont hate billy joel.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by condors

ksyrup-billy joel was not a poor boy,

William Martin Joel, born May 9, 1949, in The Bronx, NY, grew up in a comfortable Long Island suburb, Levittown

he was taking piano lessons at 4. My family couldn't afford a piano or lessons (and i don't think i was desitute) i don't want to hear about his "tough childhood" that he forces on me with his songs

Isn't being forced to grow up on Long Island punishment in and of itself?

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Pyser

as a ben folds fan, i object to this statement.

Sure, without a guitar it may have been nerd rock, but Ben Folds Five was still rock dammit!

[Ksyrup]

I was waiting for mckerney to chime in with a Ben Folds comment. Well done!

[Buddy Grant]

Originally Posted by Bosco

So what do you listen to?

Pretty varied tastes, I listen to pop music from tin pan alley era up to modern radio/dance (turn of century to current), various jazz (mostly older like big band up to 70's Tower of Power), reggae/ska (60's to current), punk (from 60's garage to 70's iggy/dolls/clash to 80's Husker du to 90's Bad Religion to current acts), Soul/R&B (1950's-1970's only), funk (60's and 70's), blues & folk (all types & era's from Robert Johnson to Seeger to JD Crowe to current), rap (least familiar style but Public Enemy used to be a fave), country (classic if you will - George Jones, Cash, etc. basically pre 1980 country), classical (only a small group of fave composers), and rock (from rockabilly to big hair). There are many musical genre's listed that can fall under the pop music catch all, and I'd consider some forms not listed (like electronic) covered by the big pop banner. I did not start the thread so I am not trying to pick a fight with Joel fans, but beyond those I would dismiss outright from any consideration at all (like NSYNC) Billy Joel would be on the near bottom of my list of musical artists. The biggest problem I have with Joel is not the crappy music, it's the fact his popularity pushed that style of piano playing into rock/pop music for a period of time, a period of time that was very influential in my music tastes. To this day I don't care for keyboards in rock/pop music unless it's Alan Price, Jerry Lee, Manzarek, etc.. I never liked Elton John either, and although he has written some of my most disliked tunes of all time (like "I'm Still Standing") I think he generally wrote much better material than Joel. Maybe it's Joel's habit of trying to incorporate his classical music roots into his piano pop, but whatever it is, I want it turned down... NOW!

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Buddy Grant

I never liked Elton John either, and although he has written some of my most disliked tunes of all time (like "I'm Still Standing") I think he generally wrote much better material than Joel. !

Actually I believe Billy Joel has written almost all of his material, and if I am not mistaken Elton John has not written any of his. I don't really care if people write their own stuff but if it going to be the arguement against Joel than someone has to defend him.

On a side note a friend of mine is in a pretty successful cover band and I keep trying to give him advice on cool songs to cover. (The Police, Pink Floyd, The Who, etc) He always blows me off and says it isn't what people want to hear. Well one night I got excited when I heard them covering the Monkee's "I'm a believer" and the Who's "I can't explain" and then I come to find out later they are just pop remakes by no talent assclowns. I have caught on to his schtick now. Is it same to assume "The Boys of Summer" has been remade by someone recently?

[Buddy Grant]

Originally Posted by panerd

Actually I believe Billy Joel has written almost all of his material, and if I am not mistaken Elton John has not written any of his. I don't really care if people write their own stuff but if it going to be the arguement against Joel than someone has to defend him.

I am pretty sure Elton wrote the music (who else?!), but the lyrics were usually writen by Bernie Taupin.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Buddy Grant

I am pretty sure Elton wrote the music (who else?!), but the lyrics were usually writen by Bernie Taupin.

Correct.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by panerd

Is it same to assume "The Boys of Summer" has been remade by someone recently?

Why yes, it has. I can't tell you who, but I caught a bit of it somewhere recently and about lost my lunch.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Why yes, it has. I can't tell you who, but I caught a bit of it somewhere recently and about lost my lunch.

I think it was a woman signing this...not sure...

[Ksyrup]

Dola.

And btw, it's precisely that type of crap that I freakin' hate. If you're going to go through the trouble of actually performing, then write your own damn songs! Otherwise, find that ugly, fatass producer down in Orlando, have him give you some songs to sing, learn some dance moves, and be the next NSync.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Dola.

And btw, it's precisely that type of crap that I freakin' hate. If you're going to go through the trouble of actually performing, then write your own damn songs! Otherwise, find that ugly, fatass producer down in Orlando, have him give you some songs to sing, learn some dance moves, and be the next NSync.

Funny thing is that the younger generation doesn't know the difference and loves it. I've heard songs on their 3rd or 4th remake...

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Buddy Grant

I am pretty sure Elton wrote the music (who else?!), but the lyrics were usually writen by Bernie Taupin.

OK. And correct me if I am wrong because I really don't know everything there is to know about Billy Joel, but he doesn't write the music to his songs?

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by panerd

Is it same to assume "The Boys of Summer" has been remade by someone recently?

Twice, in fact.

Dance/Techno artist DJ Sammy had a Top 100 hit in 2000 (I Think) with a dance version of it (I call it the lesbian version of the song, because the lead singer in this song is female)

And this past fall, punk rock band The Ataris did their own version. (The only word that changed was the line was "On the Road today, I saw a Black Flag sticker on a cadillac" (instead of a Deadhead sticker)

[panerd]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

Funny thing is that the younger generation doesn't know the difference and loves it. I've heard songs on their 3rd or 4th remake...

Overheard in cafeteria: Have you heard that new song "Twist and Shout" by Kid Rock?

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by panerd

Overheard in cafeteria: Have you heard that new song "Twist and Shout" by Kid Rock?

Exactly while the rest of us have to live with the pain...

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by panerd

OK. And correct me if I am wrong because I really don't know everything there is to know about Billy Joel, but he doesn't write the music to his songs?

Yes, I believe he writes everything, except (allegedly) River of Dreams, which he (allegedly) stole from someone.

[rkmsuf]

"allegedly" with quote fingers gesture thing...

[Ksyrup]

Although to be fair to Billy, the guy never followed through and didn't even get Wacko Jacko money to make it all go away:

People Briefs: Billy Joel Lawsuit is Dropped
(from the 1994 N.Y. Times News Service)



A $10 million copyright infringement lawsuit against the singer Billy Joel has been dropped. Alan Friedman, Joel's lawyer, said that Gary Zimmerman, the claimant, had received no money, The Associated Press reported Wednesday. Carl Person, Zimmerman's lawyer, confirmed that his client had dropped the suit and received no money.

Zimmerman, a songwriter in Merrick, N.Y., had charged that Joel had stolen his work for the hit songs ``We Didn't Start the Fire'' and ``River of Dreams.'' He contended that he had sent his unpublished song ``Nowhere Man'' to Joel in 1986 and that parts of it had been used in the two hits. Joel said he had never heard of Zimmerman's song.

[korme]

JAMES TAYLOR IS THE SHIZNIT

[WSUCougar]

Actor Ben Stiller is my Billy Joel. Watching him makes me squirm in my chair.

[cuervo72]

So we now have a Ksyrup AND a Bosco?

[Buddy Grant]

Originally Posted by panerd

OK. And correct me if I am wrong because I really don't know everything there is to know about Billy Joel, but he doesn't write the music to his songs?

I always thought so, if not then I might have to withdraw some of my Billy Joel objections since they mostly pertain to the music.

[BigJohn&TheLions]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

.

Zimmerman, a songwriter in Merrick, N.Y., had charged that Joel had stolen his work for the hit songs ``We Didn't Start the Fire'' and ``River of Dreams.'' He contended that he had sent his unpublished song ``Nowhere Man'' to Joel in 1986 and that parts of it had been used in the two hits. Joel said he had never heard of Zimmerman's song.

So it's safe to assume that Mr. Zimmerman's song blew, as Mr. Joel's 2 songs both sucked zombie rectum.

[Glengoyne]

I am shocked a bit at the lack of love for Elton John and Billy Joel. Not to mention James Taylor. This is the music I love. I am sitting here in my office listening to "Madman across the water" and "Teaser and the Firecat"(Cat Stevens). "Down Easter Alexa" is among my favorite Billy Joel songs. Come on folks Honesty, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, She's only a woman, Captain Jack, Piano Man, Only the Good Die young, Not to mention My life. You guys are WAY off on this one. Now if you don't like some stuff like Pressure, Still Rock and Roll to me, and Allentown I could understand it. It is just that carte blanch writing off all of those early works is just ludicrous.

[Craptacular]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

I am sitting here in my office listening to "Madman across the water"

Levon sells cartoon balloons in town
His family business thrives
Jesus blows up balloons all day
Sits on the porch swing watching them fly

By the way, my friend's brother has forever ruined Tiny Dancer. Doubt if he made it up, but now all I can think about when I hear that song is "Hold me closer Tony Danza".

edit: Obviously, he didn't make it up, but that was actually the first time I heard anyone say/sing it.

[oykib]

Did Quiksand know that he was starting the new threadkiller?

If you're drunk, don't get behind the wheel, man.