Notes From D. R.

Deep Rising

Was De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising the first true hip-hop album?

Obviously, the answer is no--hip-hop had been around for at least a decade prior to the album's 1989 release. Yet a case could the made that the answer is actually yes, in the sense that Rising was the first album to demonstrate that, at its best, hip-hop was in fact an art form. 

The Long Island trio's debut album was one of the most innovative of its era--or any era, for that matter. Transcending the boundaries of "urban music," hip-hop, and jazz, Rising set a standard for creative excellence that only A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory could ultimately match.

What made Rising stand out from the hip-hop pack was its sense of intelligent humor--not the blood-soaked street sarcasm that could be found on the "gangsta rap" albums of the age, but the cerebral, crisp hilarity of such songs as "Jenifa Taught Me," "A Little Bit of Soap," "Potholes in My Lawn" and "Buddy." While the album did occasionally venture into serious territory ("Ghetto Thang," "Say No Go"), the album is defined by its levity. 

Rising was also notable for its creative use of sampling; De La Soul used the work of Michael Jackson, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, Barry White and others to create a unique aural experience. The group set a standard for the skillful use of sampling in hip-hop; it's hard to imagine P. Diddy making a name for himself through effective sampling if De La hadn't paved the way.

Despite the success of "Me, Myself & I" as a single, no one really knew what to make of the group. It became convenient for the media to label De La hip-hop "hippies," even if such a description made no sense. What delighted De La's fans--and irritated their critics--was their refusal to adhere to any sort of hip-hop convention; they simply made music, and anybody who didn't like their product was free to listen to a far less talented performer.

Unfortunately, Rising was so innovative that the group could never top their first achievement. 1991's De La Soul is Dead was an impressive work in its own right, but it was burdened by a painful self-consciousness; the group desperately wanted to move away from the false "hippie" image, but it was unclear what they were moving towards. The spirit of innovation was still there, but they seemingly restricted that spirit in an attempt to avoid further accusations of "hippiedom." 1993's Buhloone Mindstate was, sadly, one of the worst hip-hop albums of all time, an incoherent mess filled with awful songs about shady album-promotion tactics and bizarre ethnic-pride declarations. Their creative poverty lasted until the early-2000s, when they released the first two albums of a planned "Art Official Intelligence" trilogy; while they were able to regain a position of prominence in American pop-culture, they weren't able to recapture the momentum they had in the late-1980s.

De La Soul will always be associated with the genius of their first album; perhaps they set a standard so high that even they couldn't match it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however. 3 Feet High and Rising remains a work of unlimited ambition, extraordinary skill and creative flawlessness. Listening to the album is like watching the performance of an athlete in his or her prime; it's the easy experience of excellence.

Play It Again

The return of Billy Joel.

UPDATE: More from the Miami Herald.

Any Major Dude (Will Tell You)

We remember so many things about the year 1972--the release of The Godfather, Richard Nixon's landslide re-election, Diana Ross' film debut in Lady Sings the Blues. Another event of tremendous cultural significance occurred 35 years ago--an event that still resonates with lovers of musical art to this very day.

In the fall of 1972, Can't Buy A Thrill, the debut album from the pioneering rock group Steely Dan, was released; the album quickly became a pop-culture staple thanks to the hit singles "Do It Again" and "Reelin' in the Years." Thrill is filled with grace notes from beginning to end: the elegant moodiness of "Dirty Work" and "Midnight Cruiser," the piercing loneliness of "Fire in the Hole," the humorous chaos of "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again." Very few artists are lucky to create a masterwork right out of the gate: with Thrill, Dan joined that rarefied company.

Less than a year later, Dan managed to exceed their previous excellence with Countdown To Ecstasy, another top-to-bottom flawless album. Every song on the album would merit inclusion on a greatest-hits disc: the manic "Bodhisattva," the jazzy "Your Gold Teeth," the sarcastic "My Old School" and "Show Biz Kids," the romantic "Pearl of the Quarter," the ferocious "Boston Rag." Ecstasy wasn't as commercially successful as Thrill, but the album is one of the most creatively inspired musical works of all-time.

In 1974, Dan released Pretzel Logic, a commercial success thanks to the subversively edgy hit "Rikki Don't Lose That Number." It's a testament to the brilliance of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen that even the putatively depressing tracks on the album (the prejudice allegory "Barrytown" and the drug-addiction chronicle "Charlie Freak") are, in their own way, uplifting. "With a Gun," "Night by Night," "Pretzel Logic", "Through with Buzz" and the Charlie Parker tribute "Parker's Band" are works without flaw or peer.

By 1975, Dan had become a studio-only band; the technical and business complications of touring had become far too enervating for both men. Before the bicentennial, they released Katy Lied, yet another outstanding achievement. Katy Lied depicts an America flirting with derangement: one cannot listen to such brilliant tracks as "Bad Sneakers," "Black Friday," "Any World That I'm Welcome To," and "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" without envisioning a populace "going insane/and... laughing in the frozen rain." "Throw Back the Little Ones" evokes the loneliness of "Fire in the Hole," "Your Gold Teeth II" represents a moment of calm in the midst of a cultural hurricane, and "Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More" outdoes "My Old School" and "Show Biz Kids" in its sardonic look at life.

Extreme cynicism also defined 1976's The Royal Scam, which would be considered Steely Dan's greatest work were it not for the album Becker and Fagen released the next year. "Everything You Did," "Sign in Stranger," "Haitian Divorce," "Kid Charlemagne" and "Don't Take Me Alive" are harsh, bitter, brutally funny examinations of the worst elements of the human condition. "The Royal Scam" is a furious, expertly crafted denunciation of the exploitation of ethnic immigrants in turn-of-the-century America; the song works because, unlike other "protest songs" by "socially conscious" musicians, it is absolutely free of pretense and self-consciousness. Just as "Your Gold Teeth II" provided a break from the turmoil on Katy Lied, Fagen and Becker supply a bit of emotional relief with the beautiful "Caves of Altamira," a meditation on lost childhood innocence that is perhaps their finest song.

After a year of production, Steely Dan released the iconic album Aja in the fall of 1977. The album can still inspire euphoria even if one has listened to it a hundred times. From the romantic aura of the lengthy title track to the barely concealed anger of "Deacon Blues," from the smooth, sharp cynicism of "Black Cow" to the sexual hilarity of "I Got the News," Aja was, is and always will be a work of genius. The album was a tremendous commercial success, powered by the hit single "Peg"; much like Prince's Purple Rain, Aja represented one of the few times in modern musical history that an album's success was warranted by its creative achievement.

After releasing a greatest-hits album in 1978, Becker and Fagen began work on their next album. The recording sessions were constantly interrupted by personal tragedies, legal disputes, and technical difficulties; for Becker and Fagen, the production of this album was essentially a minor version of the hell Francis Ford Coppola went through making Apocalypse Now. Gaucho was finally released in November 1980; thankfully, it was also a success due to the hit single "Hey Nineteen." The cynicism on Gaucho is far less distinct than it was on The Royal Scam or Katy Lied; songs such as "Glamour Profession," "Third World Man" and the title track have their share of pessimism, but the songs are hardly what one would call end-of-the-world visions. The standout track on this album is "Babylon Sisters," arguably the "sexiest" Steely Dan song ever.

Exhausted from the strife of producing Gaucho, and feeling that they had accomplished everything they possibly could as a unit, Becker and Fagen disbanded the group in the summer of 1981. Fagen immediately went into production on his solo debut, 1982's The Nightfly, an outstanding work that can be considered Aja II in terms of quality; later in the decade, he would match his accomplishment with the musical score for the underrated 1988 Michael J. Fox film Bright Lights, Big City. Becker spent the 1980s producing albums for such artists as Rickie Lee Jones.

Steely Dan reunited in the early-1990s: Becker produced Fagen's second solo album, 1993's Kamakiriad, Fagen returned the favor on Becker's 1994 solo album, 11 Tracks of Whack, and the two returned to touring after nearly two decades (highlights from their 1993 and 1994 tours appeared on the 1995 album Alive in America).

In the late-1990s, Steely Dan began work on their first post-Gaucho album. 2000's Two Against Nature proved that Fagen and Becker had never lost what made them great: the album seemingly picks up exactly where Gaucho had left off, with muted cynicism ("What A Shame About Me," "Jack of Speed") and off-kilter humor ("Cousin Dupree," "Gaslighting Abbie," "Janie Runaway" and the title track). The album deservedly won a Grammy for Album of the Year, although Becker and Fagen should have earned the award for Aja 23 years earlier.

Steely Dan is still going strong today; they followed up Nature with 2003's critically acclaimed Everything Must Go, and embarked on another well-received tour shortly after the 2006 release of Fagen's third solo album, Morph the Cat. Steely Dan's resurgence is one of the better musical developments of the last fifteen years. Considering the deterioration of popular music in the United States over the past decade and a half, it's wonderful to know that Becker and Fagen are back, jack, and doing it again.

The Last Song

Singer Denny Doherty, famous for his work with The Mamas and the Papas, passes away at 66.

In Theory

Today, the notion of hip-hop music as an art form is considered absurd, but one must keep in mind that this wasn't always the case. In fact, a little over a decade and a half ago, one hip-hop album in particular garnered attention and acclaim for its fierce innovation, lyrical creativity, and good old-fashioned excellence.

The Low End Theory was the second album from the New York-based group A Tribe Called Quest, whose debut, 1990's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, joined the 1989 De La Soul CD 3 Feet High and Rising as welcome departures from the gangsta posturing, unrelenting misogyny, and anti-police militancy that defined hip-hop at the time. With Theory, Tribe not only fulfilled the promise suggested by Rhythm, they also set a standard that was apparently too high for most of their successors in hip-hop to live up to.

Quest members Q-Tip, Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammad exhibit virtuosity on every track, from the dreamlike "Excursions" and the acerbic "Butter" (a hilarious condemnation of extreme female vanity) to the bleak urban-poverty chronicle "Everything Is Fair" and the bitter music-industry analysis "Show Business." The witty, sometimes mind-bending lyrics are complemented by sleek jazz notes; "Versus from the Abstract" features an outstanding contribution from the legendary Ron Carter.

Listening to Theory is equivalent to watching a film with a flawless script, world-class performances and impeccable direction. The CD works on every emotional level: the sheer joy of "Vibes and Stuff" and "Jazz (We've Got)," the paranoia of "Fair" and "The Infamous Date Rape," the high hilarity of "What?" and "Rap Promoter." There is not an ounce of fat on the album; Theory reveals Quest as a group that has succeeded in its endeavor for excellence.

The Low End Theory was a landmark achievement for hip-hop, and it's regrettable that thug-rap outpaced it in terms of pop-culture influence. Quest managed to follow Theory with the equally excellent Midnight Marauders, and a handful of artists (most notably Digable Planets in their 1993 debut, Reachin': A New Refutation of Time and Space) attempted to match Theory's greatness, but by the late-1990s, thug-rap had become irreversibly dominant, and the so-called "jazz rap" phenomenon defined by Theory had been dismissed as a fad.

Perhaps if Theory had become the template for American hip-hop, the genre's reputation wouldn't be nearly as negative as it is now. The Tribe went on a Quest for quality, and achieved their goal in grand style. What would hip-hop be like today if more artists had decided to follow in their footsteps?

The Death Of Journalism

The New York Times kills a tree to tell us something we already know: most pop musicians are liberals.

Purple Reign

While Prince's relationship with Warner Bros. Records ended on bitter terms, it's hard to deny that his 19-year tenure with the label represented the most fruitful period of his career. During his time with Warner, Prince not only became a pop-culture icon, he also set new standards for excellence in an industry that seemingly revered mediocrity.

The Minneapolis musical prodigy signed with Warner in 1977; the label was reportedly the only one to accede to Prince's demand that he produce his own songs. In April 1978, he released his first album, the solid For You, which yielded the minor hit "Soft and Wet." Prince went over budget on the first album, and was under pressure to deliver a hit with his next one: his self-titled 1979 follow-up featured such a hit, the classic "I Wanna Be Your Lover" (as well as another song, "I Feel For You," which became a hit five years later when it was covered by Chaka Khan.)

Prince's most striking (for its time) song was "Bambi," an account of a young man who discovers that the female object of his affection "...had another lover/[who] looked just like you." It's impossible to imagine an artist getting away with this song today; "His Royal Badness" endorses an extremely carnal version of conversion therapy, declaring "Bambi, can't you understand?/Bambi...it's better with a man!" However, the striking sexuality of this song was nothing compared to what would come next.

1980's Dirty Mind is considered Prince's first true classic; it is still stunning for his raw emotion and jaw-dropping sexual imagery. The album is disturbing when one hears it for the first time; Prince seems completely consumed by the pursuit of sexual freedom, the desire to destroy anything considered "traditional," the need to remake the world according to his rules. It's fitting that the album ends with "Partyup," an antiwar anthem; the entire album is, in essence, an attempt to rekindle the fires of the "Make Love Not War" era.

Prince backed away from overt sexuality with 1981's Controversy; even the album's most famous track, "Do Me, Baby," seems more concerned with making love than with mere screwing. The album is essentially Prince's response to the Reagan Administration; Prince seemed to represent the views of those who came of age during the hedonistic '70s, and couldn't figure out how to function in a new, culturally conservative era. Despite its provocative title, "Sexuality" does include some "traditionalist" advice: "Parents, don't let your kids watch television/before they know how to read/or else all they'll know how to do/is cuss, fight and breed!"

The next year brought Prince's second classic album, 1999, a masterwork that brought the artist to the forefront of American consciousness. The album represented every aspect of his personality: Prince the politician (the title track), Prince the sex machine ("Little Red Corvette," "Automatic," "Let's Pretend We're Married," "International Lover"), Prince the epicure ("D.M.S.R."), even Prince the patriot ("Free," a brilliant song that has never received its just due). Even if Prince had never recorded anything else, this album alone would have solidified his status as a musical genius.

Fortunately, he continued to record; his next album, the soundtrack to his film Purple Rain, supplanted Michael Jackson's Thriller as the most influential album of its era. Purple Rain matched 1999 in terms of artistic perfection and scope; the album is an emotional tour, from the opening monologue of "Let's Go Crazy" to the stirring conclusion of "Purple Rain." The album's creative flawlessness made it even more memorable than the film itself. (Rain's fifth track, "Darling Nikki," is one of modern music's most infamous songs; Tipper Gore, who had purchased the soundtrack for her daughter, was so horrified by the depiction of female masturbation in the song that she led a crusade to have parental advisory labels attached to albums with sexually charged lyrics.

Prince's next two albums, Around the World in a Day and Parade: Music from the Motion Picture Under the Cherry Moon were controversial for different reasons: some of Prince's fans felt that he was deliberately moving away from "black-themed" music in order to pander to the white audiences he attracted between 1999 and Rain. Despite such backward criticism, both albums were memorable; in addition to such popular songs as "Raspberry Beret" and "Kiss," the albums featured such outstanding compositions as "Condition of the Heart," "Pop Life," "The Ladder," "Mountains," "Girls & Boys," and "Sometimes It Snows in April."

1987's Sign O' The Times was Prince's third classic; it is still considered the absolute best album he has ever released. A combination of various projects conceived in 1985-86, Sign is the 1999 of the late-80s, a showcase of Prince's political (the title track), sexual ("It," "Hot Thing," "Slow Love," "If I Was Your Girlfriend") and spiritual ("The Cross") sides. With this album, Prince firmly placed himself in the history books alongside James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone and Marvin Gaye as one of the most gifted artists of the post-1950s.

Later that year, Prince planned to release the so-called Black Album, an apparent response to those who felt Parade and Around the World in a Day were attempts to abandon his black audience. However, one week prior to its planned November release, Prince ordered all copies of the album to be destroyed, supposedly because he had a vivid dream in which God told him not to release the album. (The album was widely bootlegged, and was ultimately given an official release in November 1994.) Prince decided to "replace" the Black Album with 1988's Lovesexy, another brilliant album depicting Prince's struggle between his devotion to God and his devotion to sex. The tracks "I Wish U Heaven," "Anna Stesia," "Glam Slam" and "Dance On" rank among Prince's finest work. While Warner Bros. hoped that the album would be a Purple Rain-style success, Lovesexy underperformed, largely due to controversy over the album cover, which depicted Prince completely nude, with his thigh hiding his genitalia.

Prince's next two albums were solid but unspectacular soundtracks: 1989's Music from the Motion Picture Batman and 1990's Music from Graffiti Bridge. Other than "The Future," "The Arms of Orion" and "Scandalous," the Batman soundtrack is unremarkable. Graffiti Bridge is a manifestly uneven work, featuring moments of greatness (the energetic "Can't Stop This Feeling I Got") and garbage (the wretched "We Can Funk," with such profound lyrics as "I'm testin' positive for the funk/[And] I'll gladly pee in anybody's cup...")

Prince got back on the ball with 1991's Diamonds and Pearls, an underrated album featuring such superb tracks as "Thunder," the title track, "Cream," "Gett Off," "Daddy Pop," "Insatiable," "Willing and Able," and "Strollin'." While there is some filler on the album (the horrendous "Jughead" and "Money Don't Matter 2 Night," an anti-George H. W. Bush track that comes across as the world's worst protest song), the good far outweighs the bad.

The only truly substandard album of the Warner Bros. era was 1992's Love Symbol, a bizarre attempt at a Tommy-style rock opera that failed to satisfy either casual Prince fans or devotees. Despite such solid songs as "Love 2 the 9s," "And God Created Woman," and "Damn U," Love was a creative step backward overall. It seemed as if Prince had nothing left to prove musically, and had now decided to devote himself to oddball interests.

That same year, Prince signed a new, highly lucrative contract with Warner Bros. Shortly thereafter, the relationship between the artist and the label fell apart; Prince reportedly felt that Warner Bros. had deceived him on issues such as the number of albums he would be allowed to release during a calendar year (Prince, one of the most prolific artists of all-time, had wanted to release more than one album a year; Warner Bros. apparently felt otherwise, claiming that releasing more than one album a year would damage overall sales). The feud between Prince and Warner became quite bitter; at one point, Prince declared himself a "slave" to the label, and performed with the word painted on his face. He also announced that he would no longer record under the name "Prince," since Warner Bros. legally "owned" the name. (He would use the so-called Love Symbol as his name; since the symbol was unpronounceable, the press referred to him as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.")

In 1993, Prince released a greatest-hits box set; the next year, as he attempted to get out of the contract, he released Come, another underrated album whose dark, sexual lyrics led some reviewers to declare it the Dirty Mind of the 1990s.

By 1995, there were reports that Prince would be released from the contract after producing two more albums. That September, he released The Gold Experience, another classic album; it was hailed as a comeback and his finest work since Sign O' The Times. The album could be considered the concluding portion of a trilogy of "personal" Prince works, the first two being 1999 and Sign. The political, spiritual, and sexual sides of Prince were on display again, but this time with a new maturity: "We March" was a more energetic sequel to Sign's title track, "Gold" matched "Purple Rain" in its emotional depth, and "P Control," "Endorphinmachine," "Shhh," and "319" depicted Prince as an older but far wiser lover. "Billy Jack Bitch," "Eye Hate U" and "Dolphin" (which Prince debuted in a stupendous December 1994 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman) should be included among Prince's top 25 greatest compositions.

Prince's final Warner album, 1996's Chaos and Disorder, was critically trashed upon its release, but looking back it wasn't nearly as bad as Love Symbol. Other than the rap-rock botch job "I Rock, Therefore I Am," the songs are uniformly good; the album was likely condemned because people expected all of Prince's songs to be uniformly great. "Into The Light" is a solid a spiritual song as Prince has ever produced, "Dinner with Delores" is a light, humorous track, and "I Like It There" is Prince with a slightly less Dirty Mind ("And like an embryo, baby/Don't abort this dire need for you...")

Four years after Prince left Warner, the label's legal rights to his name expired, and he dropped the Love Symbol as his official billing. By the mid-2000s, Prince had returned to major commercial success on the strengths of his albums Musicology and 3121. He is still an innovator, a risk-taker, a record-breaker, a classic-maker. He is still on the throne, continuing a reign that began with Warner nearly thirty years ago. When it comes to music, he was, is, and always will be American royalty.

Big Shot

Next March marks the tenth anniversary of the murder of hip-hop artist Christopher Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G. Wallace was shot to death in Los Angeles after attending the 1997 Soul Train Music Awards; the killer has yet to be found and and will likely never be discovered.

Much has been written about the deleterious influence of hip-hop music on American culture, particularly African-American culture; I certainly haven't been shy about criticizing rap-music thuggery. However, I can't deny that Wallace was, for all his faults, a truly talented performer; there was something unique, something "above the fray," something memorable about his music, which is more than one can say for many hip-hop artists who've gained a following in the years following his death.

Wallace's first album, 1994's Ready To Die, became popular on the strength of songs such as "Juicy," "One More Chance," and "Big Poppa." "Juicy" is a heartbreaking, dramatic, unforgettable account of Wallace's rise from abject poverty and criminal activity to the pinnacle of the hip-hop industry; listening to the lyrics, one can hear Wallace's deep appreciation of the success he has enjoyed, a success borne of years of struggle. Wallace acknowledges that he's living the glamorous life, but can never forget the years of deprivation that preceded his fame.

"One More Chance" and especially "Big Poppa" obliterated the line between hip-hop and pop music; it's impossible to imagine Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's songs having mainstream appeal if Wallace hadn't paved the way with those two singles. "Big Poppa" is a pure party song, hedonistic joy set to an Isley Brothers beat; in many ways, it's hip-hop's answer to Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up." Looking back, it shouldn't have surprised anyone when Michael Jackson asked Wallace to contribute to a song on his 1995 HIStory album; Jackson obviously recognized that Wallace shared his instinct for crafting songs satisfying to both commercial and artistic tastes.

Wallace's second album, Life After Death, was released soon after his murder. The album's first single, "Hypnotize," matched "Juicy" in its creative brilliance; fueled by a sample from Herb Alpert's 1979 instrumental "Rise," "Hypnotize" was, in essence, a hip-hop version of Muhammad Ali's self-aggrandizing boasts. Wallace declared himself the smartest, most talented, and most charismatic figure in hip-hop; after hearing his lyrical craftsmanship on display, one would be hard-pressed to disagree. The follow-up single, "Mo Money Mo Problems," was more of a Sean Combs song than a Wallace track, but the latter's talent shone through in the song's final verse.

Wallace was, at bottom, the Kurt Cobain of hip-hop: a talented musician who died before he could fulfill his potential as a legendary music figure. Like Cobain, Wallace is now considered a legend in part because of his early demise; however, we'll never know if he could have become a bona fide icon.

There was a certain skill to Wallace's work, a skill that is hard to find when one listens to mid-2000s hip-hop. While Carter does make an effort to be excellent, most modern rappers settle for mediocrity, if not worse. Turn to a hip-hop station these days and you'll hear hour after hour of overproduced crap from half-wits who probably threatened to blackmail somebody if they didn't get a recording contract. Even the supposedly "good" modern hip-hop figures are wildly overrated; can we all agree that the only decent song Kanye West has ever recorded was 2004's "Jesus Walks"?

Wallace was a visionary, a man who believed that hip-hop could not just complement pop music, it could become pop music. He approached his work with passion and innovation, and became a principal figure in American pop culture even before his untimely passing. Wallace's death seems like it was yesterday...but his influence is still felt today.

The Entertainer

When music aficionados discuss the creative peaks of our finest artists, they'd be negligent to omit Billy Joel's historic 1976-1983 run.

While Joel first made waves in the fall of 1973 with the Piano Man album, it wasn't until 1976's Turnstiles that he hit his musical stride. This self-produced album featured such brilliant, introspective songs as "Summer, Highland Falls," "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," "Prelude/Angry Young Man" and "James"--musical short stories that touched upon the themes of unsatisfied love and middle-class alienation that would define Joel for most of his peak run.

While an outstanding album, Turnstiles was not a commercial success (despite featuring the now-classic "New York State of Mind"). Following its release, Joel teamed up with legendary producer Phil Ramone to create 1977's The Stranger, an international hit that, like its predecessor, took the form of short stories capturing the essence of teenage angst ("Movin' Out [Anthony's Song]", "Only The Good Die Young") troubled relationships ("The Stranger," "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," "She's Always A Woman") and the urge to satisfy one's ambitions ("Vienna," "Everybody Has A Dream," and even the frothy "Get It Right The First Time"). The Stranger became a hit largely on the strength of the adult-contemporary staple "Just The Way You Are"; while it's now fashionable to mock the song as excessively sappy, even this ballad is a testament to Joel's tremendous skill.

The Stranger became the second-best selling album in the country after Fleetwood Mac's Rumours; instead of resting on his laurels, Joel returned to the studio to record 1978's 52nd Street, which won a much-deserved Album of the Year Grammy. In terms of its depth and virtuosity, 52nd Street is arguably Joel's Purple Rain; there is not a flaw to be found in any of the album's nine songs. While "My Life," "Honesty" and "Big Shot" became radio staples, "Zanzibar," "Rosalinda's Eyes" and "Until the Night" joined the ranks of Joel's all-time best compositions.

In the spring of 1980, Joel surprised many fans by abandoning the rock-and-pop hybrid of his previous three albums for a full-on rock approach. Glass Houses was a raw, angry, energy-filled album: the one-two punch of "You May Be Right" and "Sometimes A Fantasy" rivaled the Rolling Stones' best 1970s work. The album's finest cuts--the haunting "All For Leyna," the jovial "I Don't Want To Be Alone" and the sarcastic "Sleeping With The Television On"--were never released as singles; the album is still best known for Joel's first #1 hit, "It's Still Rock & Roll To Me."

1981's Songs In The Attic was an outstanding live album, featuring songs from his pre-Stranger period, including work from 1971's Cold Spring Harbor and 1974's Streetlife Serenade. Joel's renditions of "She's Got A Way" from the former album and "Los Angelenos" from the latter are superb; the same goes for such cuts as "The Ballad of Billy The Kid," "You're My Home" and "Captain Jack" from Piano Man.

Joel was reportedly severely traumatized by the December 1980 murder of John Lennon; this tragedy, coupled with the breakup of his marriage to his first wife, influenced the creation of his 1982 masterwork The Nylon Curtain. The album is at turns a Beatles tribute, a mediation on the passing of youth, and an editorial on the economic and social unease of the late-1970s and early-1980s. If 52nd Street was Joel's Purple Rain, Nylon Curtain was his Sign O' The Times: it is impossible to listen to such tracks as "Laura," "Goodnight Saigon" (arguably his best song ever) and "Where's The Orchestra" without being moved to tears and reflection.

A more optimistic Joel returned to the studio less than a year later to record his final peak project, 1983's blockbuster An Innocent Man, which was conceived as a tribute to pop music of the late-1950s and early-1960s. With such hits as "Uptown Girl," "Tell Her About It" and "The Longest Time," Joel demonstrated that he could make a commercial success out of a concept album, not an easy task at the time (or subsequently).

After An Innocent Man, Joel released the wildly successful compilation Greatest Hits, Vol. I and Vol. II and three solid but unspectacular albums--1986's The Bridge, 1989's Storm Front (a huge hit thanks to the single "We Didn't Start The Fire") and 1993's River of Dreams, his final original work. In 2000, Joel released a live album featuring songs from his December 31, 1999 performance at New York's Madison Square Garden; last year, he released a box set entitled My Lives, and earlier this year he put out another live album.

Joel has made headlines in recent years for successfully battling alcoholism, pursuing an interest in classical music and winning a Tony Award for the musical Movin' Out, which was based primarily on music from his peak period. Looking at his success, it's hard to believe that Joel was once so despised by critics that he would rip up their negative reviews onstage out of frustration with their over-the-top invective.

Those critics never thought that Joel would be considered a legend. He is considered one now, and deserves to be. Most artists would kill to have two or three of their albums considered classics. Joel released seven consecutive classic albums in a row. How many artists can match that feat?

Joel's status as a musical genius is beyond dispute, his talent beyond compare. We’ll always be in the mood for one of his melodies...and he'll always have us feeling all right.

UPDATE: More on Joel.

Guess He Didn't Get The Blue Carpet Treatment

Rapper Snoop Dogg arrested on illegal handgun possession charges in California.

Stop Over

Singer Gene McFadden, famous for the 1979 hit "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now," passes away at 56.

You're Gonna Miss...

Singer Lou Rawls passes away at 72.

Imagine That

Hard to believe it's been 25 years since John Lennon was slain.

Here's Your Change

Good to see I'm not the only one who took a dim view of Kanye West's recent condemnation of President Bush.

Immaterial

Madonna gives the strangest interview ever to the New York Daily News. Talk about egomania running wild...

Immaterial

Madonna gives the strangest interview ever to the New York Daily News. Talk about egomania running wild...

So Much For Diversity Of Opinion...

The Boston Globe bashes the hell out of singer Nick Cannon for having the gall to make a song sympathetic to the anti-abortion movement.

"Teenage Angst Has Paid Off Well, Now I'm Bored And Old..."

A Detroit newspaper reports that Eminem is planning to retire. Boy, whoever thought that he'd quit before William Rehnquist?

UPDATE: More from the Los Angeles Times.

Top To Bottom

Singer-songwriter Obie Benson of the Four Tops passes away at 69.

Give Me The Reason...

R & B icon Luther Vandross passes away at 54.

UPDATE: More on Luther Vandross.

SECOND UPDATE: The Washington Post's Richard Harrington on the power of Luther Vandross.

THIRD UPDATE: More from USA Today.