Billy Joel
hit back as hard as he could with
Glass Houses
, his bid to prove that he could rock as hard as any of those
new wave
punks. He might not have proven himself a punk -- for all of his claims of being a hard rocker, his work inevitably is
pop
because of his fondness for melody -- but he proved to himself that he could still rock, even if the critics didn't give him any credit for it. It was now time to mature, to move
pop/rock
into the middle age and, in the process, earn critical respect. In short,
The Nylon Curtain
is where
went serious, consciously crafting a song cycle about Baby Boomers in the
Reagan
era. Since this was an album about Baby Boomers, he chose to base his music almost entirely on
the Beatles
, the pivotal
rock
band for his generation.
Joel
is naturally inclined to write big melodies like
McCartney
, but he idolizes
Lennon
, which makes
a fascinating cross between ear candy and social commentary. His desire to record a grand concept album is admirable, but his ever-present lyrical shortcomings mean that the songs paint a picture without arriving at any insights. He occasionally gets lost in his own ambition, as on the waterlogged second side, but the first half of the song suite --
"Allentown,"
"Laura,"
"Pressure,"
"Goodnight Saigon,"
"She's Right on Time"
-- is layered, successful, mature
that brings
tantalizingly close to his ultimate goal of sophisticated
for mature audiences. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine