So why is Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I’m a Long Island, New York native, and Billy Joel has been Long Island pop culture royalty since as far back as I can remember.
There was a period for some years when I was a little bit “over” Joel’s music, mostly from having a dozen or so of his greatest hits blasted into my ears incessantly via Long Island radio stations during my childhood and teen years.
Reassessing and coming back to Billy Joel’s music has been a great joy, and much like I discussed recently in my review of The Cars’ Heartbeat City, the “first” album that you personally experience from a great band or artist always holds a particularly special place.
Very similarly to my experience with The Cars’ “You Might Think” and “Magic,” it was MTV’s heavy rotation of the music videos for “Uptown Girl,” “Tell Her About It,” and “The Longest Time” that hooked me on Joel’s brand of crooning throwback rock and roll.
There’s heavy 1950s and 1960s rock and doo-wop influence on An Innocent Man, and “The Longest Time” best captures that vibe. That spirit too, perhaps, of a more innocent time (speaking of innocence) – whether imagined or mythologized or not. In any event, I adore the crooning, harmonizing singing quartet style of this song. It feels timeless and is at the very least endlessly pleasing.
The nostalgia evoked by the class reunion story in the music video is perfect as well. Pretty great acting from Joel, too, playing both an older version of himself in addition to a younger one from the 1950s.
It’s well known that Billy Joel started dating supermodel Christie Brinkley in the early 1980s, and indeed she’s mentioned throughout An Innocent Man (including the song “Christie Lee”). She also appears in the “Uptown Girl” video, a song of course that’s also about a blue collar guy like Joel finding his uptown girl in Brinkley.
The song is super breezy and fun, an upbeat and faster-paced update to 1950s crooners. And the music video once again is exceptionally well produced and choreographed.
This is as good a time as any to mention that when I was a kid – An Innocent Man was released around the time I was nine years old – I announced to my family that I thought Christie Brinkley is pretty. My mother translated this to mean that “I prefer blondes,” an opinion she has never relinquished. And, long story short, I did end up marrying a blonde haired woman, so… maybe she had a point. Who knows?
I’ve used words like “breezy” and “pleasing” to describe An Innocent Man, but it’s important to note how tightly written, executed, and produced it is as well. This was on my mind while revisiting “Tell Her About It,” which sails along with seeming effortlessness.
One final point on the album as a whole is that Billy Joel’s singular piano playing skill is very much de-emphasized on An Innocent Man. Probably done as a means to change up the sound, I’d suppose.
Pop culture stuff that’s somehow related to Billy Joel’s “An Innocent Man”
“Easy Money” was written as the theme song of the movie by the same name, and the song appears on both An Innocent Man and the Easy Money soundtrack.
It’s a very good song and a very good comedy, starring the great Rodney Dangerfield and Joe Pesci. It’s also one of a number of 1980s movies where a person of normal or blue collar means inherits an obscene amount of money… but then there’s always a catch.
Some stats & info about Billy Joel – An Innocent Man
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Soft Rock, Album Rock, Adult Contemporary
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was An Innocent Man released? 1983
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #432 out of 1,000
Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Once I thought my innocence was gone – now I know that happiness goes on.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.