# Billy Joel vs. Elton John **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994 "2010-07-17T04:25:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/41 "2010-07-19T18:56:56Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > To be fair, Billy Joel never claimed “It’s Still Rock n Roll to **Wordman**.” 🙂 Exactly - I could’ve saved him a lot of trouble. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/42 "2010-07-19T19:18:13Z")
VERY tough call, but I’ll give it to Billy Joel on volume. Elton has some very edgy material–‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ and ‘Tiny Dancer’ suggest themselves–but a lot of his material meanders into cringe-worthiness. Joel got progressively lighter as he went, but his lesser stuff was still quality material; compare ‘Goodnight, Saigon’ to ‘Nikita’, for example. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/43 "2010-07-19T19:32:35Z")
“It’s Still Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me” isn’t even fully about music, it’s about an attitude. “Next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways. It’s still rock and roll to me!” I don’t think the song is exactly hard rock, it’s got a bit of a punky vibe, but I’d say Joel’s attitude is what’s rock-y. Even so, he’s singing _about_ rock ‘n’ roll, not trying to compose the next “Satisfaction.” I’d put up “Only the Good Die Young” and “You May Be Right” and “Close to the Borderline” and “Captain Jack” as being rock songs. Not hard-driving headbangers, but rock nonetheless. At the least they’re pop songs with plenty of routh edges. Isn’t it all semantics? Does it really really matter? A good song is a good song, irrerspective of genre. (Hey, Elton John has that unbearably inspid “Candle in the Wind,” so he has a lot to answer for to the rock deities.) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/44 "2010-07-19T20:00:47Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > I waited until now to comment on this, because I was hoping it would start making some sort of sense after a bit of reflection. But nope. > > To me, this sounds the same as saying “ **RealityChuck** can’t claim to be a real speculative fiction writer, especially when he actually uses the phrase ‘science fiction.’ It makes me embarassed for him when I read that.” > > I mean, are you trying to say there’s something wrong with the term “rock ‘n’ roll”, or that rock & roll as a musical genre doesn’t include Billy Joel’s work in any of its subgenres, or what? Do you just mean to say that Joel isn’t a true Scotsman? (Because the [True Scotsman Association](http://rockhall.com/inductees/billy-joel/) of Cleveland, Ohio disagrees.) No, I’m saying that when he does actually mention the term “rock ‘n’ roll,” he, apparently without irony, is explicitly drawing to my attention the yawning chasm between real, effortless, sincere, soulful rock ‘n’ roll on the the one side, and his well crafted but shallow pop music on the other. I refuse to quibble about the definition of “rock ‘n’ roll” and appeals to authority (the Hall of Fame, seriously?). We’re talking about music here. It’s all opinion. Billy Joel’s music is pop music, it doesn’t rock. And when he does try to push the hard stuff, as in “You May Be Right” and “Only the Good Die Young,” he sounds like such a pathetic wannabe that it’s embarrassing to listen to. He’s on the Pat Boone or Neil Diamond or Paul Anka end of the scale, not the Tom Petty or Neil Young end and it really shows when he tries to pose. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/45 "2010-07-19T20:16:21Z")
Despite a few songs, I don’t think Joel ever really tried to be a rock star, at least in his albums; he has much more in common with singer-songwriters like Paul Simon, Randy Newman and Leonard Cohen, all of them great, none of them rockers. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/46 "2010-07-19T22:44:16Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I refuse to quibble about the definition of “rock ‘n’ roll” and appeals to authority (the Hall of Fame, seriously?). We’re talking about music here. It’s all opinion. Exactly my point. Neither the Hall of Fame folks nor you get to pronounce what songs and musicians are serious rock ‘n’ roll music. When it comes down to it, you formed an opinion on Billy Joel the person which colors your perception of his songs. I get a quite different impression, but that’s just an opinion too. But then again, I’m not accusing BJ, EJ or anybody else of ‘posing’. (You’d think he’d be a bit stiff and tired after holding a pose for forty fuckin’ years, btw. [You’d be wrong.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPpKfnNkDB0)) But it is, indeed, all opinion. IMO, anyone who can -without irony themselves- draw equivalence between Billy Joel and Pat Boone (or between Neil Diamond and PB) lacks perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/47 "2010-07-19T23:01:37Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Exactly my point. Neither the Hall of Fame folks nor you get to pronounce what songs and musicians are serious rock ‘n’ roll music. In that case, your point is wrong. That’s exactly what I get to do. That’s how opinions work. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/48 "2010-07-19T23:48:17Z")
Ah, sorry. Should’ve made the unstated explicit for you. Add “and be respected as a reasonable arbiter.” Seriously, “Billy Joel is a pathetic poser” is an uninformed and narrow opinion whoever expresses it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/49 "2010-07-20T03:19:10Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > To me, what makes those songs cheesy is precisely because they don’t sound authentic, they sound calculated and insincere – “Now I’m going to write a song that shows I have sympathy for the working class.” Maybe that’s the key, here. Say we’re listening to the same Billy Joel song, but it strikes me as semi-autobiographical while you figure he’s faking it with calculatedly insincere lyrics; obviously we’re both going to come away with very different impressions of the guy. Did he really grow up working-class in Levittown, hanging out with the greasers and riding a Greyhound on the Hudson River line before living in a crummy apartment jotting down notes about the kids selling drugs in the housing project outside his window? Was he struggling to write “Piano Man” _ **before** _ hitting it big, when he was just another high-school dropout with a broken nose taking requests from rowdy drunks while the waitress makes her rounds and some businessmen slowly get stoned? Were things so bad that he attempted suicide, eventually reworking the note he’d left into song lyrics? Is he plainspokenly _ **explaining** _ that he got a call from an old friend who said he couldn’t go on the American way and so bought a ticket to the West Coast in hopes of giving 'em the stand-up routine in LA? Does he pretty much just hold up a mirror whenever possible? Or, y’know, _ **not?** _ ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/50 "2010-07-20T12:56:18Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Ah, sorry. Should’ve made the unstated explicit for you. Add “and be respected as a reasonable arbiter.” Arbiter of taste? Fortunately, I’m satisfied with just having my own opinion. And I think most critics will admit to that as well. > [@](#): > > Seriously, “Billy Joel is a pathetic poser” is an uninformed and narrow opinion whoever expresses it. An opinion of music needs nothing more than exposure to music. I’ll consider my ownership of several Billy Joel albums from the 1970s and '80s, listened to extensively in my youth, to be sufficient information. And I’ll note that your characterization of my opinion of Billy Joel is not what I said. Although I’d consider “Billy Joel is a pathetic poser” as a valid opinion if someone said it, what I said is > [@](#): > > And when he does try to push the hard stuff, as in “You May Be Right” and “Only the Good Die Young,” he sounds like such a pathetic wannabe that it’s embarrassing to listen to. He’s good at composing and performing within a certain range of pop music. When he tries to stretch it further, he doesn’t pull it off. > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Maybe that’s the key, here. > > Say we’re listening to the same Billy Joel song, but it strikes me as semi-autobiographical while you figure he’s faking it with calculatedly insincere lyrics; obviously we’re both going to come away with very different impressions of the guy. > > Did he really grow up working-class in Levittown, … > > Or, y’know, _ **not?** _ This is music, not autobiography. If it _sounds_ inauthentic to me, it doesn’t really matter whether the details are literally true. Joe Cocker isn’t the son of a black sharecropper, but he has the ability to perform soul music with an authentic voice. Maybe if Joel had gotten Cocker to record his songs for him, they would come off better. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/51 "2010-07-20T13:53:02Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Arbiter of taste? Arbiter of what’s rock ‘n’ roll and what isn’t. Clear from the context, were you to find context important in forming your understanding of what others tell you (or sing to you). > [@](#): > > An opinion of music needs nothing more than exposure to music. I’ll consider my ownership of several Billy Joel albums from the 1970s and '80s, listened to extensively in my youth, to be sufficient information. It’s sufficient information to form an opinion on whether you believe the artist succeeds at any level or in any various criteria you care to judge. It’s a comically weak basis for declaring whether the artist is allowed to wear an imagined “real rock artist” mantle. What I understand from your posts is that, in your opinion Billy Joel’s songs are calculated, shallow and insincere and that BJ isn’t a “real” rock artist and is instead a “wannabe.”’ My further understanding from your posts is that this opinion is based in some significant part on your judgement that the songs “sound” inauthentic, and that BJ’s actual experiences and close relationships to his subject “[don’t] really matter.” If I’m accurate in that paragraph (and I’ve been corrected once by you, so I want to be careful in summarizing your opinion), then I consider a) your characterization of Joel’s sincerity to be narrow and uninformed, and b) your willingness to declare who is and is not “real” in their rock artistry to be hubristic and risible. That is, if I’ve accurately summarized your characterization and declaration. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/52 "2010-07-20T13:58:04Z")
If authenticity is really a barometer we’re interested in pursuing here, I’d say Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ and ‘The Entertainer’ are about as authentic as it gets. ‘New York State of Mind’ is probably right behind. Then again, so is ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’. I’d say Joel goes to the truly personal more often and more effectively than Elton, but that’s arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/53 "2010-07-20T14:07:06Z")
Joel in the 2nd round. He’s just tougher. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/54 "2010-07-20T14:20:07Z")
By the way, I’m not arguing against Elton in my defense of Billy. Out of the two, I probably have more EJ in my library. But both have songs that have permanent rotation in my subconscious soundtrack, and I gave the edge very slightly to Billy Joel based on immediate gut selection. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/55 "2010-07-20T14:30:53Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Arbiter of what’s rock ‘n’ roll and what isn’t. We’re all arbiters of our own opinions. Billy Joel’s best work doesn’t rock, and when he tries to rock, he fails. I’m not the first person in the world to express such an opinion. > [@](#): > > Clear from the context, were you to find context important in forming your understanding of what others tell you (or sing to you). Art is its own context. Do I have to understand Britney Spears’s Louisiana roots before I’m qualified to say whether “Baby One More Time” is Cajun music? > [@](#): > > a) your characterization of Joel’s sincerity to be narrow and uninformed, and Since I have not characterized his personal sincerity at all, you are working with insufficient data. Not all artists have the same set of skills. When Billy Joel tries to come off as a rocker, he fails to project authenticity. The same could have been said for Frank Sinatra. > [@](#): > > b) your willingness to declare who is and is not “real” in their rock artistry to be hubristic and risible. 25-cent words right back atcha. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/56 "2010-07-20T15:29:55Z")
A really close match-up in my book. They’re stylistically similar, have been very successful, and I like a lot of both of their catalogs. _Goodbye Yellow Brick Road_ is a double album masterpiece, a timeless classic, and Elton’s done plenty of other terrific stuff. But, Billy wrote his own songs, which is a big plus in the respect column for me. And in the end, my Billy Joel playlist of favorite cuts is longer than my Elton one. I like that Billy has what I’ll call “first-person darkness” in a lot of his songs - depression, angst, resentment, break-ups, regretting decisions in one’s life, from the POV of the singer or subject of the song - usually mixed with irony or sadness or humor. And the darkness always rings true to me, touches a chord I can identify with. Examples: _Piano Man, Captain Jack, The Entertainer, Movin’ Out, Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, Allentown, Goodnight Saigon_. (The last two stand out to me as good songwriting on Joel’s part since these can’t have been based on his own life experiences.) He also has some really good second-person songs, addressed at or to someone, either lovey-dovey ones like _Just The Way You Are_ (perhaps a bit too treacly) or a right-out “why don’t we do it in the road” type of song in _Only The Good Die Young_; but my favorites, again, are the ones with darker biting lyrics like _Pressure_ or _Don’t Ask Me Why_. And introspective songs like _Vienna_. There are many times in my life where my mental jukebox picks a snippet of a Billy Joel song or lyric to fit my current mood or thought, while rarely does so for an Elton John song - he’s more “mood music”. The exceptions being _Candle In The Wind_ and, perhaps somewhat oddly (or telling of my state of mind), _Roy Rogers_. Two that have gone through my head this past week alone from these two gentlemen. From Billy Joel’s _Pressure_: _You’ve only had to run so far, so good But you will come to a place where the only thing you feel Are loaded guns in your face, And you’ll have to deal with - pressure_ … _Here you are, in the ninth, Two men out and three men on - Nowhere to look but inside, Where we all respond to - pressure_ or from _The Entertainer_: _I am the Entertainer, and I know just where I stand: Another serenader, in another long-haired band. Today I am your champion, I may have won your hearts, But I know the game, and you’ll forget my name, I won’t be here in another year, If I don’t stay on the charts…_ versus the softer, more wistful imagery from Elton’s _Roy Rogers_: \*Sometimes you dream, sometimes it seems There’s nothing there at all You just seem older than yesterday, And you’re waiting for tomorrow to call… \*… \*Roy Rogers is riding tonight, returning to our silver screens Comic book characters never grow old, Evergreen heroes, whose stories are told… \* I know which one resonates more deeply with me and more often. Oh, and I totally hate, hate, hate his cover of _Pinball Wizard_. I actively loathe it with a passion. That also dilutes my liking for him, that he could desecrate that song in such a fashion. So yeah, it’s Billy Joel for me. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/57 "2010-07-20T16:19:54Z")
as I said before and will say again: YMMV. I find the lyrics you quote above from BJ to illustrate his “first person darkness” to be sophomoric, teenaged trying-to-hard. Smart enough to have solid craft in their construction, but the point he is trying to make sounds like a 17-year-old geeked up on Ayn Rand and wanting to share the brilliance. I can do without. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/58 "2010-07-20T18:31:23Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > 25-cent words right back atcha. Those were only nickel words, but you can have 'em for free. It’s 'cause I like you. ---
**Author:** ![Staver808](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@Staver808](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staver808)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/59 "2010-07-20T18:46:24Z")
Wow, it’s a dead heat as of my vote. 60 for Joel vs 61 for John. This is also a very hard decision for me as I like both artists. While I like more of John’s songs, I like Joels songs more. In fact my favorite song by him isn’t even very popular. It’s Down Home Alexa, and is about the fishing village he’s from. I think it’s just a great song, even if it doesn’t get any air time. Great match up. Even with all their flaws, I think they are still both great performers, and I would have loved to see them perform together! ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994/60 "2010-07-20T19:09:01Z")
> [@Staver808](#): > > …Down Home Alexa… Nitpick: It’s _The Downeaster “Alexa”_, named after his daughter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-joel-vs-elton-john/546994.md?page=4)