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The Nylon Curtain by Billy Joel

The Nylon Curtain

Release Date: 1/1/1982

Recording Date: 9/1982

Tracks: 9

Length: 00:41:57 Hrs

Label: Columbia

Type: CD,CS

Genre/Styles:
Soft Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Piano, Strings, Vocals, United States of America, Album Rock

Album Tracks (9)

Song Title
Length
1.
Allentown
03:51
2.
Laura
05:06
3.
Pressure
04:41
4.
Goodnight Saigon
07:03
5.
She's Right on Time
04:14
6.
A Room of Our Own
04:04
7.
Surprises
03:26
8.
Scandinavian Skies
06:00
9.
Where's the Orchestra?
03:17

What the Critics Say

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 Billy Joel 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 The Nylon Curtain 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 pop that brings Joel tantalizingly close to his ultimate goal of sophisticated pop/rock for mature audiences. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

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