Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Or say singer/songwriter if you don't like Billy Joel.
And to some extent during the 90s, 00s.

Ed Sheeren?

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

John Legend?

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

If he still wrote music, it could still be Billy Joel.

It's not like he slowly faded away. His last two albums were phenomenal and damn successful.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Might as well ask here: Why has Joel been so critically denigrated? I'm not his biggest fan, but he's a fine lyricist and musician.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Jason Robert Brown, except he's a Broadway composer. He's said he was heavily influenced by Joel and once did a project covering a number of his songs.

Here are a couple of songs from JRB's Songs for a New World:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lxOMs9KvoKk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Iy2skMYODwc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

I like Joel, but Paul Simon has always been a better singer songwriter and he's still at it. Just had a new album come out.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Last two? Including Fantasies & Delusions?

Really hard to find another Billy because nobody really wants that style anymore than didn't already grow up with Billy and will just play his music when they want a fix.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

I think Ed Sheeren is a good choice since he's a frequent Grammy nominee and very popular and successful (especially in Great Britain). Another less-popular heir is Gavin DeGraw who sometimes tours with and opens for Billy. Here's a shot I took of the two of them together a couple of years ago :

https://scontent.flas1-2.fna.fbcdn.n...0c&oe=592BE926

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Coldplay

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Slightly off-topic, as was my earlier question, here's a splendid New Yorker article about Joel.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

No. Storm Front and River of Dreams.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Ed Shereen is awful. His songs literally sound like the caterwauling of a whiny bitch. He has zero good songs and the frequency of their airplay is evidence that payola still exists.

How about someone like Freedy Johnston or Ben Folds?

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

I think the proper answer is "nobody". Not because Billy Joel is some irreplaceable icon of god-like proportions (although I do enjoy his music quite a bit) but because the music industry is more interested in either pushing artists into specific target demographics or cashing in and getting out quick with flash in the pan pop success. The record industry simply doesn't need a Billy Joel type to make money.

Sure, there are dozens of guys out there, toiling away in coffee houses, bars, etc. trying to stand out among the tens of thousands of acts on Bandcamp, CDBaby and other online outlets, but they are doomed to be forever lost in the shuffle, farts in a windstorm of biblical proportions. You may find your own personal Billy Joel out there somewhere, but that person will never touch the lives the original did.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

So not his last two. Storm Front goes back to 1989, which is I why I was posting earlier that he just stopped making new music because it wouldn't chart anymore. That's been true since the mid 90's after River of Dreams. Which is probably why his last album (Fantasies & Delusions) was a classical release.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

How about that guy who was on SNL recently? Father Misty somebody. He blew me away because he seemed extremly sincere. No irony. And was clearly very James Taylor influenced.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Ben Folds?

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

A few that come to mind who are similar in terms of popularity, style (not "sound"), and both praise and scorn:

John Mayer
Marcus Mumford
Ray LaMontagne


and some of the country-lite pop-oriented singer-songwriters such as

Keith Urban
Luke Bryan

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

But those two albums did very well. How would he have known that potential subsequent albums wouldn't chart?

I agree with Jason in that nobody is popular enough to really fit. Maybe the closest thing is Taylor Swift, but even she has help in writing songs.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Because that happened to those that could be considered his closest peers?

Essentially the closest thing you get are the more rock oriented guys in country music. Which is why I think more than a few singer/bands essentially switched to country by the end of the 90's. Even Bon Jovi and Def Leppard put out country flavored tunes/albums.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Let's be clear about one thing: Fantasies & Delusions wasn't "Billy Joel's last album". It was an album of classical compositions that he wrote. He doesn't even play on it.
That's like saying this is the last or latest album by Bach.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Well if we're now playing that game, there are multiple live albums that came after than one as well.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

That was horible. The guy fundamentally misreads all the songs.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Yes, that article was alluded to in the New Yorker article to which I linked. The gist of it is that Joel and his music are phony, shallow, sanctimonious; that Joel is a pretender.
I am far from a Joel scholar. I have not examined his albums and lyrics to gauge their authenticity. I don't even own most of his albums. I just like some of his music, and his lyrics are often very smartly conceived and acerbically delivered.
No doubt Joel is wealthy and lives in a gilded glass bubble far removed from the blue collar world about which he writes, but so does Springsteen, whom the article's author obviously admires. I prefer Springsteen's music, too, but don't see him as morally superior to, or more genuine than, Joel.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

But Billy Joel's later work wasn't as blue collar as his early stuff, and he certainly isn't trying to portray himself as such these days as Springsteen is.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

(To answer the OP).

Karl Martin Sandberg

:)

The biggest most famous songs over the past two decades or so, are essentially Karl Martin Sandberg "covers".

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

I agree about Ed Sheeran. Can't stand him.


And I would also say Ben Folds.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

True, which makes the Slate writer's hatred of Joel even more seemingly irrational, though his point is also that Joel has sometimes railed against, or taken a stance of superiority to, the entertainment industry, in essence speciously biting - or disdaining - the hand that feeds him.
In my view, there are legions of musicians far more worthy of contempt than Billy Joel.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

Considering he was royally screwed out of money during the prime of his career, I don't see the issue. Then being taken to the cleaners from ex-wives... I'd be bitter too after all that.

:up:

Exactly, although a better analogy would be if that Chris Gaines album was the last thing Garth Brooks put out.

Re: Question : Who Would Be The Billy Joel Of This Day And Age?
 

I know, and I'm not arguing that, necessarily, but the "The Entertainer", which I love, was written in 1974, long before he had been ripped off by his brother-in-law. Perhaps it was a reaction to the producer who screwed up his debut album, Cold Spring Harbor (which I like a lot), and had Joel locked into paying royalties for years thereafter.