“Funeral for a Friend”, “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”, and “Your Song” are up there on my favorite songs of all time list. Oh yeah, can’t forget “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me.” He also gets special points for being featured on “Soul Train”, even though it was for one of my LEAST favorite songs–“Benny and the Jets.”
I like “Billy the Kid”, “Uptown Girl”, and “The Longest Time” (which I really like), but they aren’t favorites. Nothing else by Billly really gets me going.
If I were picking the best songs by them, Elton has “Your Song,” “Take Me To the Pilot,” “Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters,” “Honkey Cat,” “Burn Down the Mission,” “Border Song,” “Candle in the Wind,” “Bad Side of the Moon,” and “Hercules.” Put he also put out utter crap like “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” and “Funeral for a Friend” (tolerable live, but terrible on the album, especially when paired with the excellent “Love Lies Bleeding”). His stuff after Honkey Chateau is hardly worth listening to.
Billy Joel has “Moving Out,” “Scenes from and Italian Restaurant,” “Cold Spring Harbor,” “Everybody Loves You Now,” “Piano Man,” “Captain Jack,” “Ballad of Billy the Kid,” “The Entertainer,” “Miami 2017,” “Only the Good Die Young,” “She’s Always a Woman,” “My Life,” and “You May Be Right.”
Joel is more comfortable rocking out (which is odd, since Elton’s 11/17/70 is the rockingest album either of them did – but he stopped that and the best he could do later was the lame " Crocodile Rock," with is really subpar Kinks territory) and has fewer real dogs in his catalog.
I posted at length in the thread from years ago that was linked to earlier so I’ll spare you my opinions this time around, but I will say (as I said before): keep in mind Elton has released more than twice as many albums Billy has. So one of them is more prolific and therefore has a wider margin for error, and one of them has a smaller output so his catalog seems “tighter”. So it’s weird to compare them, as much as they have in common.
I vastly prefer Billy. First, his voice and musicianship are more pleasing to me, and his songs speak much more to me.
Maybe it’s 'cause I grew up on Long Island so I recognize the stories he tells; maybe it’s because nothing of Elton John elates me like “Only the Good Die Young” or makes me grin like “Big Shot” or moves me to tears like “Through the Long Night” (a little-known song about depression that’s very very McCartneyesque). Then there’s “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” and “Don’t Ask Me Why” and “You May Be Right*” and “Pressure” and “The Longest Time” and “Just the Way You Are” and “Honesty” and “She’s Always a Woman” and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” and “Allentown” and “Goodnight Saigon” and, what the heck, even “Piano Man” and “New York State of Mind”…
(Yeah, Glass Houses was on constant replay during my 8th grade. I think it’s the first record I had to buy again because I wore it out. Aside from the Robin Hood cartoon soundtrack, that is.)
Elton John is great, no question. I’m not suggesting Billy Joel is the “greater” or “more influential” of the two. He’s just my favorite, by a long and wide margin.
Elton John made some timeless pop classics early in his career that secure him a place in any all-time list. Mr. William Joel has never produced anything better than solid disposable pop.
And nothing’s more ridiculous than Billy Joel trying to claim the mantle of a real rock artist, especially when he actually uses the phrase “rock ‘n’ roll.” It actually makes me embarrassed for him when I hear that. Elton John is no rocker either, but he’s done a couple of dongs that are far closer to rock than anything by Billy Joel.
I saw a concert where they performed together. I went to the concert liking Joel better. I left liking Elton better. They sang each others songs and Elton did some of them better.He did all his songs better.
I’m not a big fan of either Elton or Billy, give Billy the edge. Both are gifted pop artists who, when at the top of their game, can write catchy tunes that I can enjoy now and again. I enjoy Billy’s stuff more than Elton’s.
On a personal note: I always feel sorry for Billy Joel whenever I hear his songs. There’s something about him that makes me feel bad, feel bad for him. For all the high livin’ he’s done I have this sense that he missed the boat. In life, I mean, not professionally. Elton’s got it made. He has the life he wanted. I don’t think that this is true for Billy.
Also, some people just hate Billy Joel. Critic and social commentator Joe Queenan positively loathes Billy and everything he’s ever written. I think a lot of people do, for no good reason. It’s almost like the emperor has no clothes or mock turtle soup where Billy is concerned. Elton just is.
I am with Team Elton - for the reasons other folks post about Joel’s trying too hard and smarminess.
To me, the difference in quality is clear and substantial, but I have been part of this conversation enough times to not be suprised at all that the voting is even right about now. Topics like this remind me to respect the power of YMMV…people are wired differently and there’s no *right *answer, no matter how sure I’m right…dammit.
In my estimation, that cuts the other way. Elton John usually strikes me as just giving a performance: he’s raising his voice at the proper moment, and holding all the right notes just long enough, and so you get a catchy little tune sung to good effect by a fine showman. Billy Joel, IMHO, often does likewise, but manages to get worked up about it: he sounds authentic, he’s got some genuine emotion in there – and what some folks in this thread are calling smarminess or cheesiness are maybe right on the nose, but it strikes me as just being him, warts and all. He’s being enthusiastic or rueful or cocky or nostalgic or reassuring or sarcastic because that’s how he actually felt when he wrote the song and it comes across when he’s belting it out.
And so he gets a bad rep, because his feelings are, well, kinda pedestrian. But they’re his.
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.”
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 of Cleveland, Ohio disagrees.)
Billy’s song “It’s Still Rock n’ Roll to Me” doesn’t rock - it is not a rock song and it makes Billy come across as like, I dunno, Pat Boone - a weak wannabee. Some of Billy’s songs come closer to actual rock - You May Be Right, A Matter of Trust - but for the most part, he comes across like singer-songwriter, not rock…
See, I accept “doesn’t rock” as a valid, but vague, criticism of any particular song,* but “is not a rock song” just seems like an unqualified opinion for an individual to propound about any song released by an ostensible rock & roll artist. At the very least, it seems to place impractical restrictions on a famously diverse genre.
In any case, I’m trying to parse acsenray’s statement to the degree necessary to decide whether I disagree with his opinion about rock in general, or just with his opinion about Billy Joel.
*I disagree with the criticism in this case, but at least it says something about your reaction to the song that can be developed and discussed.
