Album Review: Billy Joel - Storm Front (1989)

Just because an album has a lot of songs you like from a particular artist, it doesn't necessarily make it a good one.  Hotel California by The Eagles is a good example - half hits, half shit.  Storm Front isn't as bad as that, but if it were for some reason necessary to cull a couple of songs from the album for say, brevity purposes, I could easily think of two or three songs here to give a flick.  The opening track, "That's Not Her Style", isn't the greatest opening to the album, and in fact I would frankly call the song downright bad.  "When in Rome" and "Storm Front" are also songs this album could do much better without.  Now, to offset me sounding like a negative Nelly of some sort, I'll go over what I think is actually great.  "We Didn't Start the Fire" is one of my all time favorite songs, and has been since it was released way back in 1989.  "The Downeaster 'Alexa'" is great, and "Leningrad" is an admirable mash-up of storytelling and Joel's very competent piano playing.  "I Go to Extremes" is another goody I know from the Greatest Hits Volume III collection, and "State of Grace" proves to be the surprise hit for me here.  "And So it Goes" I could see myself growing to like over time.  All up, not the album I was hoping to hear, but it could have been worse.  B+

Album Review: Billy Joel - An Innocent Man (1983)

I've loved some of  Billy Joel's music since the mid-late 1980s, when I was relatively wee.  I even saw him in the only concert I've ever been to (it's a long story) - his Face to Face tour of 1998, along with Elton John.  I loved it - I remembering thinking about how it sounded like a hard rock concert, both sound wise and in terms of the raw energy being put on display by Billy.  Of course, since then I've owned all three of his Greatest Hits albums.  But now I've branched out into his album catalog.  An Innocent Man in particular stands out as it contains my favorite Billy Joel songs - "Uptown Girl" and "The Longest Time."  They were the very first songs I had heard from him, and they are still among the first songs I usually play when I listen to his Greatest Hits I & II compilation.  It also features "An Innocent Man" and "Leave A Tender Moment Alone", but the track I've been doing my best to wear out is "Christie Lee."  A great song.  Otherwise, there's not too much here to float my boat.  Nonetheless, check it out anyway.  Not a bad album.  B+