Idolator: Billy Joel

Billy Joel And Elton John To Tour Together As Long As They're Still Standing

Maura Johnston — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST

In news that will send many an ex-drama club member's heart a-flutter, Elton John announced on The View this morning that his world tour with fellow ivory-tinkler Billy Joel, which begins in March, will last for "at least" two years. Think of it as a recession special: "It’s two people for the price of one," Sir Elton told ABC's class in chattering. "Our ticket prices are the same as you’d see anyone else, but there’s two of us. In this day and age, we hope to be getting people value for their money." Now that is a message that anyone can get behind! After the jump, a few Joel/John collaborations from years past. (Hey, I got over denying my roots this summer, you know?)

"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"

"Piano Man"

Billy Joel, Elton John tour to last "at least two years" [Backstage Pass]

Bruce Springsteen And Billy Joel Team Up To Bring Obamamania To New York

Maura Johnston — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Yes, the one show that a good chunk of the Tri-State area would sell its children and/or plasma to see has finally been announced: Long Island poet laureate Billy Joel and New Jersey big boss Bruce Springsteen will share a stage next month, when they play a Barack Obama benefit (with ticket prices ranging from $500 to $10,000) at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. (Why this show won't be at Madison Square Garden, which is just around the corner and which would surely sell out even at these prices, is a mystery.) Sure, there are apparently other guests on the bill—including the Democratic presidential nominee himself—but I bet you if this show goes well, many people residing on both sides of Manhattan will be lobbying for this particular bill to be taken on the road, or at least rotated between MSG, Nassau Coliseum, and the Meadowlands for the next, oh, six months or so. Even in these trying economic times, those shows would print money—and all the merch could be themed on the wide variety of transportation options that terminate at Penn Station! [Billboard]

And Now, A Chance To Celebrate The Cities That Helped Build Certain Parts Of Rock And Roll

Maura Johnston — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

It's 7 a.m. here in Los Angeles, the news wires have been shocked into silence by the news that Britney Spears will try to become famous for something besides driving around this city, and I just hit Apple-Q when I meant to hit Apple-W, thus losing a (kind of long!) post that I, like an idiot, did not save neither early no often. What better time to post Randy Newman's semi-sardonic love letter to the City of Angels, "I Love L.A."—which I always get in my head when I visit this town, against my will—and ask you to talk about your favorite songs that double as snapshots of the world's burgs, large and small?

Of course, no entry on this topic would be complete without me mentioning Billy Joel's "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," which is one of the few songs to celebrate the fine burg of Hicksville, N.Y. The Village Green in the song? It's a real place! With a Carvel and everything! And there's a Sears right in the middle of town, too, although its massive parking lot has been getting slowly eaten away by fast-food joints, banks, and a park & ride.

The drunk singalong is a nice touch of Long Island "authenticity," no? Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go try and start a fight between Soulja Boy and Lily Allen or something.

Randy Newman - I Love L.A. [YouTube]
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant [YouTube]

The Library Of Congress: Following In The Grammys' Footsteps?

Michaelangelo Matos — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Far be it for me to call anyone lazy (I have a couple of editors who'd like to introduce me to the concept of a met deadline), but while it's certainly excellent that the Library of Congress is honoring Stevie Wonder with its second Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, please note that the first winner, from last year, was Paul Simon. Perhaps it's a coincidence that Simon, in accepting his Album of the Year Grammy Award in 1976, for Still Crazy After All These Years, thanked Stevie Wonder for "not making a record this year," but both men dominated the Grammys during the '70s. Simon nabbed AOTY twice, in 1971 (for Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water) and '76, as well as being nominated in 1974 for There Goes Rhymin' Simon. And of course Stevie won three times: 1974 (Innervisions), 1975 (Fulfillingness' First Finale), and 1977 (Songs in the Key of Life). What, then, might this mean in terms of future Gershwin Prizes? Let's take a look.

I decided to do this entirely by numbers. Of the remaining five AOTY winners for the decade (meaning 1971-1980; all dates are the year the Grammy is given, not the year of album release), four were by artists who weren't otherwise nominated during the span. Sorry, Carole King (1972, Tapestry) and Fleetwood Mac (1978, Rumours) and the Bee Gees et. al. (1979, Saturday Night Fever). Now, if we were going to open things out a bit, the short answer would be easy: Billy Joel, who won in 1980 for 52nd Street and was then subsequently nominated four more (1981, Glass Houses; 1983, The Nylon Curtain; 1984, An Innocent Man; 1994, River of Dreams).

Within the decade, however, two artists are in the clear lead. Elton John had not two, but three nominations during the '70s, though he never won (1971, Elton John; 1975 Caribou; 1976, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy). And George Harrison won once (1973, The Concert for Bangla Desh) and was nominated earlier (1972, All Things Must Pass). Still, it's hard to see either winning, mainly because they're both English and I'm going to hazard a wild guess that a United States Library of Congress award is reserved for Americans. (Though John's longtime Atlanta residency might qualify him.)

The other Brits who've been mentioned more than once for AOTY aren't exactly recording artists, per se. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's musical Jesus Christ Superstar was nominated twice in a row, in 1972 and 1973, for the Broadway cast recording and the film soundtrack. I'd love to root for this to win the award next year, only that would be dishonest, because I have absolutely no patience for such nonsense once it reaches my eardrum. Of course, you could say that three of the other dual-nominees made records that basically sounded the same, too: James Taylor (1971, Sweet Baby James; 1977, JT); Chicago (1971, Chicago; 1977, Chicago X); and the Carpenters (1971, Close to You; 1972, The Carpenters). As for the Eagles (1976, One of These Nights; 1978, Hotel California), the Gershwin may yet come their way, but probably not for a while.

Library of Congress to honor Stevie Wonder [AP]

Billy Joel Still Has A Bit Of The Angry Young Man Left In Him

Maura Johnston — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:00:00 EDT

Last week, the New Zealand newspaper the Sunday Star-Times ran an interview with Long Island songsmith Billy Joel that had a little bit of criticism mixed in with its boilerplate profile-quotes. Writer Grant Smithies said that while much of the Piano Man's '80s and '90s output was "sentimental rubbish," he had an affection for Joel's earlier material and pugilistic persona an opinion that sounds familiar to this writer. (Although she would like to posit that "A Matter Of Trust" still owns.) But Joel wanted to know why, exactly, Smithies hadn't shared these sentiments with him during the interview, since it would have at the very least opened up the floor for some lively quotes. After the jump, Joel asks why, exactly, Smithies had to be a big shot, and why he didn't elect to open up his mouth while the two of them were on the phone:

"I had no idea when you interviewed me that you considered much of my later work to be `sentimental rubbish', or that you thought songs like "Uptown Girl" and "We Didn't Start the Fire" were `abominations'. And your back-slapping, buddy-buddy style of conversation betrayed no indication that you actually compared talking with me to `sleeping with an inflatable girlfriend'," Joel fumed.

"You didn't bring any of this up during the interview, and I certainly would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss those kinds of things, person to person. I believe that it's always best to be upfront with someone when you have strong opinions about their work or their image, simply as a gesture of respect, or if the respect isn't there, then purely as professionalism. Had I known you felt this way, I still would have done the bloody interview, but your comments reveal you to be already critically predisposed and somewhat insincere. You are still welcome to attend our concert in Auckland, but just as a safety precaution, please wear a hockey mask."

Smithies, as it turns out, will not be attending the Auckland show. But Joel's objections do raise a good point about the line between "critic" and "profiler" being blurred, and what a writer should do when faced with covering a subject who may not be all that appealing. Do you ask, head-on, "hey, so what were you thinking when you wrote 'River Of Dreams,' because that shit is straight-up garbage?" Or do you keep your mouth shut and save your opinions for print? Or do you just keep your mouth totally shut in your "professional" capacity, and spill your guts on a friends-only Livejournal? While the first option obviously seems more straight-up—the "stabbing a subject in the face" option, as opposed to putting the knife in one's back—it does open the door for things like being hung up on. Or punched out.

Billy Joel's fuming: We've gone and started a fire [Sunday Star-Times via Gawker]

Paul McCartney Brings Shea Stadium Full Circle

Maura Johnston — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:30:00 EDT

After trotting out Tony Bennett, John Mellencamp, Don Henley, and John Mayer during what was supposed to be the last concert at Shea Stadium on Wednesday night, Billy Joel brought out perhaps the biggest gun in his cameo arsenal for Friday night's final last show: Paul McCartney, who performed "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Let It Be" (above) with the Piano Man. McCartney, of course, played at Shea with his old band the Beatles back in 1965 and 1966, and Wednesday's show was actually marked by Joel thanking the Beatles for letting him play "their room." (Everybody: Awww.) [YouTube]

A little self-promotional note: I have a ...

Maura Johnston — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:30:00 EDT

A little self-promotional note: I have a piece in Radar revisiting the back catalog of Billy Joel, an artist who, as you know, I have something of a "complicated" relationship with. (One that's made even more complicated by its one-sided nature, of course.) I actually made it out to his show at Shea Stadium the other night, and while a lot of my favorite songs were left off the set list (but "River Of Dreams" persisted, argh) and getting back to the 7 train was worse than it was for even playoff games, I had a pretty great time. [Radar]

Billy Joel Using His Soundcheck To Relive His Attila-Era Glory Days

Maura Johnston — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:15:00 EDT

"He turned a towel into a wig before launching into 'Piano Man' for his final encore and during his lengthy soundcheck, which drew fans from the nearby Hersheypark to listen throughout Thursday afternoon, he segued from 'Captain Jack' to Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man.'" And all over Long Island, hundreds of thousands of members of the 35-59 demographic put up some horns in solidarity. [Backstage Pass]

Sony Finds A Use For All Those Old Photos In The Basement

Anthony Miccio — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Sony has belatedly realized that Columbia Records' photo archive could be used for more than just box set filler. The monolith, which is suffering from "hard times," has founded Icon Collectibles, which is selling a 11"x12" photo of Johnny Cash for $300. "His eyes shine with the light of deep secret knowledge and the gravitas of an artist who's born to carry the truth in his music." For that much money, they damn well better! Lovely one-to-two feet long photos of Billy Joel, Johnny Mathis, Muhammad Ali (who did a spoken-word album for Columbia — score, Sony!), Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Gould, Bob Dylan, and several others are also available to those with a grand to kill.

Last year the company started Icon Collectibles, a boutique business that sells art-quality reproductions of these photos online, for prices from $300 to $1,700, and through various partners (including the News Services Division of The New York Times). Now it is expected to announce Thursday that it has made a deal to sell its photos through the Morrison Hotel Gallery, which specializes in rock imagery. In mid-July the gallery will open an exhibition of photos from Columbia's 30th Street Studio in its gallery on 124 Prince Street in SoHo, with plans for an exhibition of Miles Davis images in November.

"We're looking to take advantage of all the assets of the company, not just the audio recordings," said John Ingrassia, president of Sony BMG Music Entertainment's commercial music group, which manages the company's catalog. "We have the content, and we found a way to tap into it."

Yeah, yeah, more power to you, poor little conglomerate. Let's just enjoy some more of those photo descriptions.

Johnny Mathis achieved his greatest success as an album artist, creating a best-selling series of sophisticated collections which served as the backdrop and inspiration for countless romantic and sensual encounters the world over.

Ew.

Photographer Jim Haughton's iconic cover portrait of Billy is as psychologically and emotionally complex as the songs; both, unforgettably rich with symbolism and implication. "We all have a face that we hide away forever and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone," sings Billy on the album's title track. Here, like frames from a film, are 12 sequential images from "The Stranger" cover shoot, many of them formerly unseen, each offering a different perspective on the mysteries of "The Stranger." You can also notice the red mark which designates the actual chosen cover.

You mean "the good take."

While the bulk of Muhammad Ali's (aka Cassius Clay) "I Am The Greatest!" album featured the future champ dissing then-current World Heavyweight title holder Sonny Liston, predicting his impending victory in great comedic detail, the sessions for the record also produced Ali's soulful rendition of the Leiber-Stoller R&B classic, "Stand By Me." This Don Hunstein candid photograph finds the boxing icon spellbound by his own charisma, ignoring the notes in his hand to chant the words burning in his brain.

No offense to Ali, but more singers should use the "I was spellbound by my own charisma" excuse when they "ignore" notes.

Sony Taps Into Photo Archive as a Resource During Hard Times [NYT]
Icon Collectibles

Single Spinning Crackling Finns, Acidic Brooklynites, And Billy Joel (Sorta)

Jess Harvell — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:00:27 EDT

Whether they're petroleum-based or digital downloads, singles remain pop's most fascinating format. Twice a week in Single Spin, a singles-focused twist on Second Spin, we'll take a look at a song, sound, scene, or star that we think deserves more than two lines and a Rapidshare link—whether it's CMT country, underground dance, unfriendly noise, or anything else served up one tune at a time. Today we listen to a return to form from a Finnish dub-techno master, a goofy jam from a trio of sloppy New York indie kids, and faux-reggae scourge Sean Kingston warbling through the Billy Joel songbook. Yes, you read that right.

Vladislav Delay - "Recovery IDea" (Semantica)
Delay is of course well-known among bedroom house-ophiles for the diminishing returns of his dancefloor-oriented Luomo project, which began in 2000 with the spare, spacey, and brilliant Vocalcity and continued through a regrettable process of half-assed pop-flavored sweetening to arrive at the gauche, neon keyboard noodles of 2006's Paper Tigers. A songsmith Delay is not; he's most productive when suspended between ancient house music call-and-response hooks and washes of crackly digital atmosphere. So how fares his most recent return (literal in the case of this hard drive offcut) to the instrumental dub-techno that first made waves across various IDM discussion hubs at the tail end of the '90s, the stuff that was all crackle and no hooks? Wrapped in headphones—the good ones, not the chintz that comes pre-packed with your media player—it's pretty damn compelling, a squishy symphony for doors slammed shut by the wind in a parking garage overnight or feet tramping blindly through the snow. "Recovery IDea" is the sort of Autechre-esque slurp and clang that becomes weirdly affecting when a producer (as Delay does here) layers an atmospheric hum behind it, like a murmur of Erik Satie strings tying the stray noises into something almost human. Dancefloor remixes from Andy Stott, Fibla, and others add some drive to that slurp and clang, but their traditionalist techno rhythms offer the unexpected side effect of dampening some of the track's strange magic by tidying up Delay's trippy timekeeping.

Vladislav Delay [MySpace; Hear the track here]

Blood On The Wall - "Acid Fight" (Social Registry)
Liferz, New York band Blood On The Wall's album of throwbacks to the bratty murk I sieved from indie-rock zine recommendations while in high school, has been out for a minute, and I did enjoy it upon the first few listens before the Times New Viking album made it feel somewhat redundant. It was only after I saw it lurking on Matos' quarter-of-the-year-gone 'round up that I replayed album-closer "Acid Fight" and I'm glad I did. The blogosphere has taken the easy way out en masse in constantly comparing singer Brad Shanks (rightly more or less) to a pre-maturity Black Francis, but I'm gonna be contrary and say the first thing to come to mind was Weird Al commissioned by Touch And Go to parody the Jesus Lizard's David Yow, minus the cock-swinging. (At least in the first minute, Shanks panting heavy about something being wrong with his face, the kind lines that've launched a thousand Flipper tributes.) The song's mostly a lugubrious goof—in case the non-sequitur title and the invocation of Mr. Yankovic didn't tip you off—but the grungy riff (in the "less Possum Kingdom, more Slay Tracks" sense) and Ibold-bass seesaw back-and-forth with more of those golden-age indie yuks than you'd find in a mountain of modern folkies.

Blood On The Wall [MySpace]

Mann feat. Sean Kingston - "Ghetto Girl" (Sony/BMG)

I burned through the above two reviews fairly quickly before coming upon "Ghetto Girl" and needing to take a break because I was rendered momentarily brain-dead by Sean Kingston and his utterly shameless producer/groomer J.R. Rotem's latest plundering of my sister's old 45 collection for hooks. (What's next, the Go-Go's "Vacation"? "Goonies Are Good Enough"? A "Little Critter" story?) The beat's got the kind of tinny, crappier-than-an-actual-ringtone quality that gives a bad name to good ol' fashioned cheap-sounding Southern rap; baby-faced L.A. rapper Mann is the bold-faced name offering the girl-crazy rhyming ballast on the verses; but typically for '08 the whole point is Kingston's balls-out interpolation, which had Maura wondering if his "father was really a Z100 playlist from 1985." Rotem's borrowing is even more crudely blatant than the Ben E. King lift on "Beautiful Girls," and perhaps not coincidentally, I'm 75 percent sure I despise this more on the fifth play more than I did "Beautiful Girls" on the fiftieth. (It helped that I found "Beautiful Girls" charming 'til overexposure set my teeth grinding with every "suiiiiicidal.") Then there's that niggling 25 percent that has me playing it again, laughing through the wincing, and thinking that if the song becomes as inescapable as Kingston's smash, we can at least console ourselves that no crossover teen hip-hop acts have discovered the ack-ack-ack-ack hook inside "Movin' Out" just yet.

Mann [MySpace]

As predicted in this space, Billy Joel has ...

Maura Johnston — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:00:07 EST

As predicted in this space, Billy Joel has added a second "last show" at Shea Stadium after his first one sold out faster than you can say "you had to be a big shot, didn't cha?" (Well, OK, it was 48 minutes, but don't tell that to the fans who were hung up on the throttling-like-mad ticketing site.) [Brooklyn Vegan]

Billy Joel's Shea Stadium Ticketing Snafu May Make Him The New Hannah Montana

Maura Johnston — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:30:18 EST

Billy Joel's July concert at Shea Stadium—the final musical event at the crumbling concrete behemoth—sold out in one hour on Saturday morning, although the ticketing system used to handle the show's ticket sales was apparently experiencing massive gridlock. (Shea's overlords eschewed Ticketmaster for in-house site 507tixx.com, which is named after the Mets' ticketing hotline.) As you might expect, the "secondary market" for these tickets is thriving, despite the tech snafus and speedy sellout; at present, there are 441 listings for tickets on the semi-legitimate scalping site StubHub, with the highest single-seat price $99,215. That total is up from the 209 sets of tickets on sale Thursday, when Mets season-ticket holders were allowed to buy tickets early.

As you might expect, Billy's fans are crying foul over the number of tickets that have been made available via StubHub and other resellers (including Craigslist, although the prices there are in the slightly saner four-figure realm), even going so far as to invoke the spectre of Billy Ray Cyrus' spawn when discussing how insanely the tickets have been marked up. And since Hannah Montana used her first go-round as a way to stoke demand for more shows, here's some speculation: Given that the Mets have a four-game road trip on the days immediately following the concert, I wouldn't be surprised if another date or two was added to satiate the Long Island faithful—although of course those dates would sell out as quickly as the original ones, thus bringing the whole rigamarole of getting tickets to the forefront again.

209 Billy Joel tickets at StubHub already? [decechung.com]
Billy Joel Flushing [7/16/2008] [StubHub]
Billy Joel Sells Out Shea [Earvolution]

Billy Joel To Play Shea Stadium, Inspire Many "Yankees Suck" Chants

Maura Johnston — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:45:06 EST

Those Billy Joel concerts at Shea Stadium, which is closing its ugly-ass doors after the Mets close out the 2008 season^*? They will not be the final events at the cement behemoth, a fact that should cause every Mets fan out there to sigh with relief because really having a Yankee fan play the last show at Shea would just be so. utterly. wrong.

Instead, the show will take place on July 16, the night after the All-Star Game takes place at Yankee Stadium. The show will make Joel the first performer to play at both of New York City's soon-to-be-replaced baseball stadia, and it'll be the first in-season show at Shea since 1992, when Joel played with Eric Clapton. (How do I not remember that show taking place? Usually every Billy Joel show would be immediately followed by 1/3 of my high school wearing the concert's commemorative shirts. And adding Clapton to the mix? It's like the WBAB dream bill!)[Billboard]

^* I am not going to jinx anything by saying exactly when the Mets will do this. But Johan Santana looked so awesome at that press conference yesterday, didn't he??

As rumored last week, the final events at ...

mjohnston — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:15:46 EDT

As rumored last week, the final events at New York's Shea Stadium will be a string of concerts by noted Yankees fan Billy Joel, which will take place on unspecified dates sometime following the Mets' 2008 playoff run. (Well, at least the news gave me an excuse to use this picture again. Go Comets!) [Newsday]

A Billy Joel concert may serve as the closing ...

mjohnston — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:05:23 EDT

A Billy Joel concert may serve as the closing event for New York City's Shea Stadium, which is shutting its ugly-ass gates after the 2008 season. Yes, that's right: A concert by a famed Yankees fan will allegedly serve as the final event at the Mets' longtime home. I can understand wanting to squeeze dollars out of the Billy Joel faithful who live east of the Queens border, but come on, guys. What's next, appointing Rudy Giuliani as special guest MC? [Bugs & Cranks, via Fark]

Billy Joel's Hamptons Show: A Flop Or A Celebrity-Subsidized Flop?

mjohnston — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:50:18 EDT

It's always fun when factions of Rupert Murdoch's empire go into battle over important issues—like the Social@Ross $15,000-a-five-pack concert series, which has had some deep discounts available lately. This weekend's headliner was Billy Joel, and according to yesterday's New York Post, ticket sales for the show were slow enough to give promoter Joe Meli a heart attack-ack-ack:

With tickets barely moving, Meli - tail between his legs - is now offering a "limited" number of tickets to the final three shows of his series, called the Hampton Social.

"It's not too late, you can still attend the 2007 Hampton Social," he wrote in an e-mail to potential subscribers. "If you have not purchased your tickets, now is the time."

Word around the Hamptons is that Meli has been giving away lots of free tickets, to make it appear that his concerts are popular.

Au contraire! roared Fox News mouthpiece Roger Friedman, who's been serving as a sort of Personality Parade for these concerts all summer when he hasn't been offering up Clive Davis' side of the Kelly Clarkson saga. In a piece that unfortunately referred to Joel as a hometown boy for "the east end of Long Island"—ahem—Friedman gave a different take on the night's gate:

Show insiders tell me that offering the whole thing up front as a $30,000-a-couple series was too much even for the Hamptons. Sales were slow. But now, individual shows are being sold, and Joel's was so hot that 200 more seats than the 1,000 allotted for where actually sold.

"We had 1,200 people," said a source. Another source says that Joel was paid $2 million for the night.

Of course, among those "1,200 people" were a lot of boldface names—the type who live on the largesse of places like the Polaroid Beach House. (When David Blaine is "walking around doing card tricks," you know that you're living in some province of Swagland.) So yeah, Meli probably took a total bath on this, finance-wise, although his baby sure did rack up a lot of blog hits over the weekend. Who wants to put money on there being a sequel to this fiasco next year—only with higher ticket prices and more sponsors, so the celebs can keep their weekend calendars filled and Meli can look like he's saving face?

HAMPTONS' CONCERT TIX NIXED [NYP]
Fox411 [foxnews.com]
[Photo: Getty Images]

We were trolling Craigslist for last-minute ...

mjohnston — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:20:34 EDT

We were trolling Craigslist for last-minute tickets to Billy Joel's Social@Ross show when we came across this, from a man who's offering up Billy Joel's piano from the "Nylon Curtain" tour for $125,000. Somehow, this guy is not a disgruntled former employee of the Hard Rock Cafe. [billyjoelspiano.com]

Piano Man To Perez Hilton: That's Quite The Glass House You're Living In

mjohnston — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:10:12 EDT

- If Billy Joel and his daughter can bring down Perez Hilton's shitshow, we will never, ever complain about any part of his catalog again—even "We Didn't Start The Fire." [Fresh Intelligence]
- Citing concerns about the Sirius-XM merger, car-sharing company Zipcar has decided to pull XM from its vehicles. Given that the merger is way off if it does happen, doesn't this excuse seem a little fishy? [FishbowlDC]
- R. Kelly has written an inspirational song for the Virginia Tech community, with all proceeds going to the school's memorial fund. No word on whether he's also planning to auction off his Star Wars-inspired shades. [BBC]

Billy Joel Has Forgotten The Old Maxim About Glass Houses

mjohnston — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:33:49 EST

Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the junket yesterday:

The crabby Billy Joel told reporters that singing of the national anthem is kind of a slog.

"It's not the greatest song ever written," he said, complaining he shoudn't have to meet with reporters at a Thursday press conference, as required by the NFL.

"I'm just doin' the anthem period. I ain't doin' the half-time show. Prince is doing that."

Joel dissed the national anthem, saying "'America the Beautiful' is actually a better song." And when a reporter for WBBM-Radio asked Joel to sing a "Chicago song" at the news conference, Joel snidely refused. "Nah, I'm just giving a press conference. I'm not here to entertain anybody."

Aw, c'mon, Billy—we know that you made your bones as an angry young man, but really, after foisting that an aural sleeping pill on the world earlier this week, you should probably be laying low, at least on the "lobbing potshots at any other piece of music ever" front.

Prince takes questions! [Ellen Warren's Shopping Blog (?!), via Can't Stop The Bleeding]
Earlier: Leak Of The Day: Billy Joel No Longer Goes To Extremes

Leak Of The Day: Billy Joel No Longer Goes To Extremes

Brian Raftery — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:12:44 EST

Because we suspect that many of you have a long-kept-secret musical-theater background, we present you with "All My Life," Billy Joel's first proper pop song since 1993's River Of Dreams (or so we're told). What you need to know about the song: It "leaked" to Joelfan.com over the weekend; it comes with its own mixtape-like mid-song announcements, courtesy of ~~DJ Red Alert~~ some Joel fan; it sounds nothing like Jodeci.

Billy Joel - All My Life [Stream] [Joelfan.com]

When It Comes To Bad Taste, We Don't Know Why The "Post" Goes To Extremes

Brian Raftery — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:59:14 EST

From America's Egregiously Erroneous Newspaper(TM) comes this classy little mention:

WHICH ivory tickler, frequently caught drunken driving, is back on the sauce? The musician has stopped in a few of his local bars and had a few drinks, only to leave the bartenders no tip

Congratulations, New York Post, on writing the most obvious blind item of all time (and one about drinking problems, no less, a topic which should never be handled with any sensitivity whatsoever). We're surprised you didn't just go with something like, "Which downtown guy has been seen starting the fire in an Italian restaurant on Miami 2017?"

Just Asking [Page Six]