“I have bad news and good news: the bad news is that I didn’t release anything new. The good news is that you don’t want to hear anything new.” In a joke launched at the start of his London concert on July 8, Billy Joel summed up what crosses the minds of observers and fans: the American singer has not released anything new since August 10, 1993. He was River of Dreams, a classic and effective pop album like the “songwriter” has written so many.
Huge planetary star with a “pizzaiolo” physique, Billy Joel was 44 years old in 1993. He marked the last two decades with hits like Just the way you are (a wedding classic), Honesty (a Nostalgia classic) or Uptown Girl (a classic of alcoholic parties). Millions of albums sold, triumphant tours and a few harsh words from rock critics who castigate this “American Elton John”. 22 years after his first album (the average Cold Spring Harbor), “BillyJo” enters the studio and records ten songs. Does he know that they will be the last? There is the rock No Man’s Land, the cry of The great wall of China, the metallo-pop Shades of grey, the depressive All about soul, the very sweet Lullabye, the chimerical The River of dreams (which could have had its place in the Lion King soundtrack, released a year later) and the crepuscular Famous last words.
This latest album is ultimately a “best-of” of Joel’s musical influences, variations in his voice and his talent as a storyteller. It is a nugget in the discography of the American. But the success will be limited. “The last album I did, River of Dreams, was as good and maybe better than a lot of other albums I had done, but it didn’t get any radio airplay,” he explained. in an impressively dense interview on the Vulture site in 2013. Before continuing: “The thing is that I worked a lot on River of Dreams and it was as if the job had left me behind because that there are important songs on this album that never worked. So I said, ‘What’s the point of investing myself in writing and recording if it doesn’t have the meaning it’s supposed to have in the world'”
So the American singer withdrew. The art of leaving the stage at the top with a masterful piece. And so as not to dent the myth. The public begins to turn away from him, he takes him by surprise and retires to his musical Aventine. His English counterpart Elton John got lost in too many average albums to the point of forgetting, for a time, his talent as a composer. Worse, it took until 1997 and Flaming Pie, then 2005 and Chaos and Creation in the Backyard for Paul McCartney to make people forget the difficult decade of the 1980s and 1990s.
Billy Joel knows that an artist has a creativity gauge that dwindles over the years and only tops up on rare occasions. “Some composers only have a certain productivity in them, he explains in Vulture. Coming to my 12th album, I didn’t think the quality would continue to increase.” Such lucidity is sufficiently rare to be underlined. So there is no trace of the album too much; the one made for the money, to relaunch or to stay in the game. At Billy Joel, there are no shameful songs that we hide or are ashamed to listen to.
The American has not been retired for thirty years. He multiplied the conferences to explain his music. He embarked on the production of classical works. And above all, he performs on the biggest stages in the world. For ten years, he has given a concert every month at Madison Square Garden in New York. He travels across America, and sometimes Europe, to interpret, in a voice that is still just as perfect, his greatest hits and to work on his heritage. His concerts become a space of transmission where yesterday’s fans sing Vienna, Movin’out or You may be right with the new generations in the same fervor.
And when asked if he is capable of writing new songs, he answers: “Stop! You can’t write a song as an exercise. You do it for real.” Three decades later, the last words of the album’s final track resonate: “And these are the last words I have to say. It’s always hard to say goodbye. But now it’s time to put that book away. And that’s the story of my life.” What better musical epitaph?
