Billy Joel: "If you’re a real musician, that’s all about music, not sales, charts"

[PartySick 172,545]

41 minutes ago, River said:

me

 

[StrawberryBlond 15,569]

Actually, on the contrary, albums are getting a revival because of the sudden reinvigoration of vinyl collecting. I think he's talking about how so many artists are putting out singles that are made to be hits and throw them together with a bunch of un-connected filler with no concept and call it an album. They just make albums so they can tour where the real money is. I remember when Vine was still a thing that will.i.am once talked about he wanted to put out songs on that for the rest of his days, no more albums. I guess some artists are singles artists to the point where they don't want to promote a full album era or be embarrassed by low sales.

[RebeldeFaith 5,759]

Someone send him a copy of Brat and some poppers.

[Nessun Dorma 10,094]

18 hours ago, tylerjs said:

you have no talent or artistic vision, what do you want us to do about it old man

Actually he is a very talented and well-established artist. He’s one of the greatest in rock music and I really enjoy his work. Maybe it’s not the kind of music you consume or like, and that’s totally fine! But you can’t say that a 6 time Grammy winner has no talent or artistic vision. 

[Nessun Dorma 10,094]

4 hours ago, MOT said:

Well obviously he's wrong about Taylor and Olivia being the only people who are making albums, but maybe he just means 'all I ever seem to hear now is Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo'. Billy has been around for a long time, he's definitely old enough to be yelling at clouds.

I understood exactly the same thing as you did. 

[moonsago 7,285]

5 hours ago, JessFletch said:

edit- the idea of albums becoming a thing of the past is interesting though.

Singles & singles & singles, whenever an artist feels like it/is able,

is almost preferable? Am I mistaken?

God I hope not because I do love albums BUT I will say, I used to love when an album had 14-16 songs in the past, nowadays, I can’t with long albums, 10 songs is just about enough IMO. I also feel like albums used to have a lot more filler songs in the past, so I’d rather have a shorter album, or even EP like TFM, that has a small but strong selection of songs. I also think with the streaming era, any song can become a single, in the past, labels would carefully craft songs to be singles, but nowadays I feel like artists give the same level of attention to all songs because truthfully either one can blow up on streaming. Ex: Sabrina’s last project, Billie, Ari, Bey, and even Taylor... I feel like their recent projects are more focused on creating a full experience rather than have stand out songs that come across as intentionally created to be singles. Does that make sense? Which IMO is a good thing, now artists are more motivated to give us good b-sides/album tracks because they want those streams, it’s not just about throwing together 5 great singles and another 9 filler tracks to call it an album ( Rihanna’s albums come to mind lol, she was SO obviously a singles artist, besides ANTI, her projects are so weak ). 

[StarstruckIllusion 53,565]

4 hours ago, Agunimon said:

??

Billy Joel is a legend in the music industry.

Crazy how this is true yet like a typical boomer, he fails to beat the old and out of touch allegations

Like it’s literally his own industry yet 😭😭

This is so embarrassing for him 

[holy scheisse 22,936]

TBFH… 2024 has been a stellar year for albums for me personally bc we had lots of pop girlies’ albums and I rly love charli, Billie, and Ariana’s 💕

[JoeCool 1,009]

Joel no doubt has a great catalogue from the 1970's until 1993 River of Dreams which was his last album.

 

He really just goes off legacy well like a lot.  Especially his Madison Square Garden residency.    So yeah he's kinda projecting a bit with his comments.  

[phantasmas 12,374]

Beyonce is right there..

[phantasmas 12,374]

Billy Joel: 

[Emvee 8,832]

I have to assume this statement speaks more about how the likes of Taylor and Olivia eat up all the buzz in the music world right now. Because artists DO release albums. Every month. 
 

It truly is unbelievable to me that out of all those talented and interesting artists out there, the most vanilla of all vanilla is what’s getting all the attention. 

[Bronco 25,131]

10 hours ago, JessFletch said:

edit- the idea of albums becoming a thing of the past is interesting though.

Singles & singles & singles, whenever an artist feels like it/is able,

is almost preferable? Am I mistaken?

I remember P!nk on the opening night of her tour last year said, just before introducing her one off single Irrelevant, that she loved that streaming allowed her to drop random tracks like that outside of album sessions and marketing campaigns. She just got to record a song in the moment, and basically release it in near real time without having to invest massively in it. 

[Bronco 25,131]

Billy Joel is one hell of a talented musician with some amazing hits. 

That said, I don't think he can talk about "real musicians" when there are numerous stories about how he would keep the front rows empty at his shows and get his crew to scout out the crowd and upgrade pretty women to sit up front so he had a good view. 

[4th Time Around 5,059]

Billy Joel is the poor man's Elton John as far as a guy with a piano