I never really considered him to be Southern Rock either, although there are a few of his individual songs that could be considered that genre. He is more of a singer / songwriter / folk rock guy to my ears with some straight up rock and more than a few country songs as well.
I like Buffett's music quite a lot, though the "Parrothead" thing and his restaurants and all the commercialism around it make me gag. A lot of his late 1970s material could easily fit into the "Yacht Rock" genre and the genre would be all the better off for it. But I see him coming from more mainstream country rather than any sort of rock. IMHO his main innovation is that he added steel drums and a calypso rhythm to country music. That, and the sitting on the yacht with a drink imagery, and the rest is history.
Billy Joel and an incredibly oaky Chardonnay
I'm gonna be sick!
My friends and I called this stuff "wuss rock" back in the day.
I don't think I've ever heard anything from the Buffet dude, tbh...
soooo, I don't know if he sunds "yacht-y" or not.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I hate Joel's material. It sounds like his entire career was trying to prove he could write Bruce Springsteen-ish "blue collar guy" crap for Broadway. Finally, I guess when he realized Broadway was not going to contact him, and after ABBA made their hit count into a goofy musical comedy, he decided to put together "Billy Joel: The Musical" so everyone can hear songs about absolutely nothing anyone actually cares about all together...
"Alienated-so alien I go!"
I used to call half of it "wimpy white guy music" after I heard a deejay call it that one night. And although it is supposed to be mostly harmless, the Sirius channel play that Barry Mardones song "Into the Night", which is actually a very disturbing song, if you pay attention to the lyrics and not the "ocean water against the beach at night" piano music. They also play Dr. Hook, which is like taking the "genre" and drawing a giant dick on it...
"Alienated-so alien I go!"
For the record, I was jokingly singing “A white sport coat and a pink crustacean” along to Marty Robbins’ hit long before I knew it was a JB album title!
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
ugh!
Joel I lump in with Springsteen, Seeger and such who sing about stuff nobody cares about and yet get hits off of them. This line was inspired by Joel sitting in an Italian restaurant and the waiter was suggestive selling wine to go with the dinner. I am guessing that if he came to my camera store, he would have been inspired to write a song from when I asked him if he wanted film with his camera purchase. Somewhere on the lost songs of Joel is a song "Would you like that Supersized"....
"Alienated-so alien I go!"
There's one Billy Joel record I like, and that's The Nylon Curtain. There's some really good songs on that record. Yeah, Allentown is on there, but so is Goodnight Saigon (probably the best song ever written about the Vietnam War) and Scandinavian Skies, which he said was his homage to Strawberry Fields Forever:
The stuff he did before his solo career was actually pretty good too. He was in a band called The Hassles, who made two albums in the late 60's. The second one I like a little better than the first one, I think just because it's a little more psychedelic.
Then after The Hassles broke up, he and I think their drummer put out a record under the group named Atila, which was basically a proto-metal thing, with him singing and playing organ, and apparently no other melodic instruments. Apparently, he's embarrassed by all three of these records, because any time they get reissued he pulls some legal maneuver to get the release pulled from shelves.
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