Who Was Better?

Was there a video? I can't find one. So, just the iconic album cover.

 

I'm Still Standing is EJ's best song of the '80s right ahead of "Blues"

Meanwhile, Billy Joel's '80s songs that you forget to include are ...

And those are just a few.

 

"Candle" was on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973. "Sun" on Caribou, 1974.

 

I like this Pressure better.

 

A natural comparison given the thread. So similar ... yet so different.

Billy wrote his own music and the lyrics. Elton wrote the music, but Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics to much of his work.

Billy wrote more of his upbringing and captured that and New York atmosphere. Elton went in different directions - "Indian Sunset" anyone?

Billy was quite productive. Much of Elton's best work occurred when he had a record deal that required two albums a year through a span of the early- and mid-70s.

Both wrote much of their best stuff in the '70s. Billy stopped with studio albums - at least in the genre he is best known - by the mid-90s. Elton kept going, though with mixed results.

Both had some unforgettable hits of high acclaim. Yet a strong album of deep cuts could be put together for both ... maybe even a double album.

This one? Not as easy ... and I'm not at all certain who I would pick.

 

Peak Joel was the Nylon Curtain - after that it seemed like most of his songs were mimicking other songs rather than really saying anything. Still great songs, well-crafted - but not a lot of nutritional value.

 

Fine, jerk, McCartney. Imagine is better than anything Paul did, but the trio of Maybe I'm Amazed, Live and Let Die and Band on the Run is better than Working Class Hero, Happy XMas (War is Over) and (fill in your third here).

Honestly, though, neither was spectacular as a solo artist. Good, better than most even, but not what they were. If given the choice, I'd want the duo together than either of them individually. They just made each other better. One of the greatest what ifs in rock and roll history is the what if John was never shot.

 

The Bridge and Storm Front both have several great songs, including Time To Remember, A Matter of Trust, The Downeaster Alexa, and So It Goes.

People drag on We Didn't Start the Fire because the whole concept of the song is lame. But the music itself is pretty damn good. It's a test case for great music set to lame lyrics, like Grey Seal by Elton. Just phenomenal music but the lyrics don't line up for me.

 

I don't know, I fear he would have simply been making the same lame shit McCartney made after the 1970s. Unless you're down with Ebony and Ivory.

 

I kind of agree that Keeping the Faith is cheesy but the lyrics have grown on me. And the video is funny.

 

He had an edge to him in the 70s with Captain Jack and The Stranger, but man he was a cheese ball and some kind of half-ass social commentator in the 80s with Allentown, Downeaster Alexa (still a great song) and Goodnight Saigon. The earnestness feels forced.

 

Thought I was the Duke of Earl
when I made it with a redhead girl
in the back of a Chev-ro-LAYYYYY ...

Squint just right and it's like Holden Caulfield grew older and wiser and wrote some lyrics.