Hit Parade: Still Billy Joel to Me Part 2

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

News, Business, Society & Culture

3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

So, sure—Billy Joel’s first Top 40 hit, way back in 1974, was “Piano Man,” and the nickname stuck. But for a guy who became famous sitting behind 88 keys, few of his biggest hits are really piano songs. In fact, on all three of his No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, keyboards are not the primary instrument. The truth is, Joel isn’t the Piano Man, he’s the pastiche man. He has openly admitted to borrowing genre tropes, vocal styles, and even specific song hooks from his Baby Boom-era heroes, from Ray Charles to the Beatles to the Supremes. He’s been a jazzy crooner, a saloon balladeer, an anthem rocker, even a pseudo-punk. And on his most hit-packed album, he literally tried on a different song mode on every single—and was rewarded for it. This month, Hit Parade breaks down the uncanny success of pop magpie Billy Joel, the guy who would try anything for a hit: the next phase, new wave, dance craze, any ways. Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch and Kevin Bendis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
0:03.0	That's what I hear when I make another sale on Shopify.
0:07.0	The all-in-one commerce platform that allows you to start, run and grow your business.
0:12.0	Shopify is revolutionising millions of businesses worldwide.
0:17.0	So sign up for a £1 per month trial period at Shopify.co.uk
0:23.0	Flash, podcast, 23, all lowercase and take your business to the next level today.
0:30.0	If you eat, sleep, breathe for all things NFL, then DeZone is your go-to streaming destination.
0:37.0	DeZone is the only platform with NFL Game Pass.
0:41.0	That means they'll have all 272 regular season games live,
0:45.0	subject to weekly blackout restrictions, plus the playoffs, Super Bowl and more.
0:50.0	Catch every game any time, anywhere.
0:53.0	NFL Game Pass, only on DeZone.
0:56.0	Sign up at DeZone.com forward slash NFL.
1:10.0	Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Sleep Magazine
1:16.0	about the hits from Coast to Coast.
1:19.0	I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song No. 1 series.
1:26.0	On our last episode, we covered the first decade of Billy Joel's career.
1:32.0	Yes, he was the piano man, but really Joel was the pastiche man, borrowing styles and melodic tropes,
1:41.0	sometimes down to the same beat from both contemporary artists and hitmakers from his youth.
1:49.0	We are now up to the early 80s, and Joel is about to turn this trick from subtext into text.
1:57.0	He was going to mine his musical past openly to generate hits.
2:09.0	Across 12 years and seven albums,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.