Friday, April 10, 2009

Trouble On The South Fork?

Movin' Out?

Can you imagine waking up next to this hack every morning? Sure, he's a multimillionaire, but could you endure him singing those cheesy songs all the time? He probably has all the alarm clocks in the house programmed with The Entertainer.

Ron Rosenbaum, from January in Slate Magazine, penned a great column about the "awfulness of Billy Joel."

Rosenbaum's main gripe, outside of Joel's incredibly goofy lyrics, is the "unearned contempt" manifested in his songs.

For example:

First let's take "Piano Man." You can hear Joel's contempt, both for the losers at the bar he's left behind in his stellar schlock stardom and for the "entertainer-loser" (the proto-B.J.) who plays for them. Even the self-contempt he imputes to the "piano man" rings false.

"The Entertainer": Entertainers are phonies! Except exquisitely self-aware entertainers like B.J., who let you in on this secret.

"She's Always a Woman": First, has there ever been a more blatant—or blatantly inept—case of attempted artistic theft than "She's Always a Woman"? It's such a lame imitation of Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman." (B.J.'s woman "hides like a child" where Dylan's "breaks just like a little girl.") B.J.'s woman also: is prone to "casual lies," "steals like a thief," "takes care of herself," and "carelessly cuts you and laughs ..." Poor B.J., recycling every misogynist cliché in the book.

Read the whole article.

No comments:

Post a Comment