Billy Joel Is 68 Today — And His Music Is Still Terrible
Image by Billy Ach / Getty Images
What does the typical Billy Joel fan look like? It’s a serious question. We can, I think to at least a small degree of accuracy, guess what the typical Sex Pistols fan looked like back in their heyday, or the typical Spice Girls fan in theirs. But, what about Billy Joel? His music is so nondescript, so family-restaurant friendly, so bland, so cheesy, that its lack of concrete identity aside from its popularity and its blandness makes it difficult to imagine just who buys his albums, just who packs the sold out arenas.
Let’s think about it this way perhaps — Billy Joel is the suburbs of music. The term “ugly” is so often misapplied to the suburbs (some, at least). I say misapplied because the suburbs, as I’ve lived them, are not positively ugly, like, say, Jean Dubuffet’s “Art Brut,” but rather they have a sort of negative ugliness, which is to say they lack any qualities whatsoever. The “ugliness” of the suburbs is in reality nothing more than the banality, the boringness of the suburbs. As opposed to brutalism, which can often be ugly, but in a positive, fascinating sense, if the suburbs are oppressive, it is only because there is nothing to latch on to, nothing interesting. This seems to me the best description, by way of analogy, of Billy Joel’s music — negatively terrible. This, again, does not bring us any closer to visualizing the typical Billy Joel superfan, but it at least lets us theorize about why we can’t.
In any event, the occasion for these thoughts is, of course, Joel’s birthday. The man seems, like the suburbs, timeless — he’s still around, still selling records, still selling out shows. Long after we’re gone — cockroaches, Joel, office buildings, and, probably, (I shudder at the thought) The Eagles. But my hatred for Joel’s music doesn’t run as deep as some. Despite his eternal dullness, he does have some okay songs. No, if you want some real, wonderful, joyous vitriol, look no further than Ron Rosenbaum’s 2009 article for Slate, “The Worst Pop Singer Ever.” Rosenbaum is the author of books like “Explaining Hitler” and “How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III,” so when he writes about Joel’s music, well, he knows what he’s talking about. The article is one of those perennial internet gems, the epitome of “evergreen content” — so long as Joel is around (forever), this article will be necessary. But enough from me. Happy birthday, Billy, and here’s Rosenbaum.
Jake Romm is a Contributing Editor for The Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter, @JakeRomm
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
