Billy Joel - Glass Houses

I suppose there's a "Piano Man" pun somewhere to be had here - and I'm trying my best to type one, but I'm using the wrong kind of keyboard.

Yeah, sorry.

Back in the summer of 1980, Glass Houses had firmly become part of my musical landscape. Oddly enough, I didn't have my own copy at the time - everyone I knew had one, so I figured I was in the clear. I remember people talking about how Billy Joel had gone new wave, and there are some tunes where he's playing things pretty close to the flavour of the day. Then again, a song like "Don't Ask Me Why" would have been right at home on his 1977 release The Stranger.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, you can hear Billy Joel slowly moving with the times. Glass Houses was truly the logical successor to 52nd Street, where songs like "Big Shot" and, to a lesser degree, "My Life" were setting the stage for what was to come. This was a guy who could basically do what he wanted musically and get away with it - to a point. There's no forgiving An Innocent Man (1983). That's an album that should have remained a vanity project, something he sent to his friends as a Christmas present and kept from the general public.

Anyway, back to Glass Houses. I know I'm throwing stones, but frankly they're not very big - more like a few pebbles - and I'm not throwing them very hard.

Now, I've had the CD for a long time, but I haven't sat down for a concentrated listen in years. I know I try not to pick up albums I already have, as that was part of my deal with the wife, but sometimes you find something that's just too good to pass up. Finding a dollar-bin copy with the liner notes intact was one of those times. Now, whoever had this before me was not a gentle soul. There are a couple of decent scratches, but they're light enough not to pop too badly, and nothing skips.

Glass Houses was produced by Billy's longtime producer Phil Ramone and backed by his core band: Richie Cannata on saxophones, flute, and organ; David Brown on lead guitar; Russell Javors on rhythm guitar; Doug Stegmeyer on bass; and Liberty DeVitto on drums. These guys were great players and part of the total package.

Listening to the album now, the majority of the up-tempo songs (the really good ones) are on side one. It's full of songs that have become classics. Frankly, I don't know why "All for Leyna" wasn't a hit. Then the whole first side would be like a mini greatest hits album. Side two takes a more Billy Joel approach. (I know that's a cop-out, but really, the guy is his own genre to a point, and when he's just being himself, he sounds like - well, Billy Joel.) Who else could pull off a song like "C'etait Toi (You Were the One)"? Billy Joel, that's who. Of course, as soon as I make a generalization and say side two is the mellow stuff, there's "Close to the Borderline," which, while not one of my favourite songs, is still a rocker. Just not as good as the rest of side one, so onto side two it went. The only song that makes me scratch my head a little is the album's closer, "Through the Long Night," which, while a very pretty song, feels like a Paul McCartney castoff.

Regardless, here I am over forty years later listening to the piano man. It was like he knew I was in the mood for a melody, and he got me feeling alright.

La, la-la, di-di-da
La-la di-di-da da-dum

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

Billy Rankin - Growin' Up Too Fast

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Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure. I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTO's Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) - so who knows, maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust. It seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight-ahead pop or rock. It was leaning toward the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough, the vocals rem...

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