Fran Magazine: Issue #94

The Billy Joel issue

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Maestro moment

If you’re in Los Angeles — or even if you’re not! — I wanted to alert you to “Bradley Cooper: An American Cinematheque Retrospective” which starts this coming weekend and ends the following week. “A retrospective?” you might find yourself asking. “Hasn’t he only directed two movies?” Listen, I don’t make the rules. Here’s what’s playing.

• A Star Is Born (great bang for you buck! see it on the big screen! when’s it bad?, etc.)

• Maestro (duh)

• Silver Linings Playbook (okay)

• American Hustle (one of the best bad movies of all time — poorly performed, miscast, Louis CK is in there, racist, etc., but with that said, I think Cooper is the real standout of the cast)

If I was programming a Bradley Cooper retrospective, here is what I would include:

• American Hustle (you can’t beat it — what a mess!)

• American Sniper (sorry!)

• Limitless (think of the mileage we’ve all gotten out “if I had the Limitless drug” — it’s kind of iconic, you must admit!)

• Wet Hot American Summer (fun for the whole family)

• The Mule (he is really great in this…)

• Joy (some of you guys really seem to love this)

• Aloha (some of you guys really seem to love this)

• The Midnight Meat Train (only me and like six other people remember when Bradley Cooper was in a movie called “The Midnight Meat Train”)

If they wanted to make a stupid amount of money they could even program one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies which I don’t personally like but think he does great voice acting in. But I don’t live in Los Angeles and I am not a film programmer. I am just a blogger!

Billy Joel’s new song

I didn’t watch the Grammys this past weekend because of all of the various awards shows that are fake and phony and bizarre, I find the Grammys the most fake and phony and bizarre. I have previously felt actively uncomfortable watching, that’s how made up it all feels. Most of what I knew about the Grammys this year was that they were appealing to a slightly older audience — performances by Tracy Chapman, Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel. I’m not saying “young people” don’t like these performers (they obviously do!) but I’m saying this is a much less flagrant attempt to draw in Gen Z/Alpha than, say, having guys from the Olympics (?) at the Oscars (?).

Well, it feels like I fucked up not watching the Grammys this year because some actually interesting performances happened and Beyonce wore a cowboy hat and Taylor announced a new album.¹ The Tracy Chapman performance is great. So is the Joni Mitchell performance. This is all I heard about all day Monday, with not a word about Billy Joel.

I was vaguely aware of the fact that there was a “new Billy Joel” song, and I was vaguely aware of the fact that he was going to perform it at the Grammys but the lack of noise around this was frankly troublesome. Joel is an easy guy to rag on and I generally feel like people my age can’t stand him, but I love him and his music and even in my slightly more Joel-centric feeds, there was nothing about the Grammys.

I listened to the new song “Turn the Lights Back On” while I was commuting yesterday, and all of my fears were realized: the song was bad. I’m not really partial to “crooner Joel” in the first place, possibly because when I was a college sophomore, one of my housemates woke me up in the middle of the night scream-singing “Piano Man” and now I have a panic response every time I hear it.

The appeal of Joel’s music to me is twofold — one, as I think Phil once put it, this is musical theater for people who think they like rock music, and two, I like that he is a not-that-hot guy with obvious swag who is just always trying to have sex. The more crooner-y Joel songs always sound apologetic and self-serving. Joel is kind of an infuriating persona; he knows this! It’s way more fun to be mad at him than it is try to accept a fake apology. There are some good ballads in there, of course: She’s Always a Woman, Vienna (DUH!!!), and Innocent Man. But, like, if I never hear “Leave a Tender Moment Alone” ever again, that’s fine by me.

What’s so awful about this new song is that it’s not just crooner Joel; it’s an impression of crooner Joel. When I walked and listened to the song yesterday, I was overwhelmed by the sensation that Joel must have had a co-writer. And I wasn’t wrong:

No offense to this 30-something interloper but there is a reason that we don’t have a Billy Joel in 2024, and it’s because the very specific thing that he does is hard to replicate, as is evident here in this bad song. I love that Joel admits to the fact that he got annoyed enough to relent and let this guy help him record a new song. Joel’s primary concern, at least as far as his video here dictates, is that his voice wouldn’t hold up. His voice sounds great! His voice isn’t the issue. I’ve been lucky enough to see Joel twice in his Madison Square Garden residency — a treat both times. He is an energetic performer, swaying and dancing around even in his older age. His voice is not the problem — he’s lost a little of its gawky range, and it’s a bit more growly now. That’s fine! Especially in the songs where he’s kind of an asshole.

It spoke to me that Joel closed out his performance at the Grammys with a slightly sped-up version of his song “You May Be Right.”

When I had my intense Billy Joel phase (approximately 2019-2022)², the album I really fell in love with was Glass Houses from 1980. This comes after 52nd Street, which has some more notable hits off of it: Honesty, My Life, Zanzibar. Glass Houses is maybe Joel’s most pissed off album, but knowing him, he’s not really that mad about anything; he’s mostly just messing around. The first seven tracks on the album³ are basically unimpeachable to me:

“You May Be Right” is such a bratty opening to an album — you may be right, I may be crazy. There’s an instant passive aggression to it. Plus I love when Joel says he walks all the way to “Bedford-Stuy.” I know where that is!

I think the most notable thing about Joel closing out the Grammys with “You May Be Right” is that one of the lyrics in is chorus is: “Turn out the light / Don't try to save me.” Which — just literally speaking feels like the opposite of what he’s saying in “Turn the Lights Back On.” Billy! Should the lights be on or off? We have an electricity bill to contend with here! But I suspect that him closing out with “You May Be Right” suggests that he knows the new song is bad, he knows that the new song is not really him. He doesn’t need your saving. He’s going on tour to Miami! Let’s hope he buries the new song in the middle of the set and keeps playing the hits.

1. I have no thoughts on the new Taylor as a “normal style” Swiftie (as Phil once put it) other than, “it’s interesting the title of the album isn’t one word.” Last night I read the track list and saw “Fortnight (ft. Post Malone)” and “loml” and thought — “I’m good on this for now.”

2. I have been listening to Joel my whole life. Every few years, I have a really intense reaction to one of the albums and then I move on with my life.

3. The last three I could take or leave. I once remarked to a friend that I hate whenever Joel sings in French, which he does a lot of in “C’etait toi” — but weirdly it doesn’t bother me that much in Don’t Ask Me Why.