You can get off to a fast start. You can sustain your opener with the main course, not filler. But can you end on a high note? Sometimes I wonder if recording a strong closer is the most difficult thing to pull off when it comes to album rock. When it comes to the cream of the crop in music, I can think of more strong openers than strong closers. Nonetheless, I still have my favorites which I’ll be featuring on Mental Jukebox all month.
As a New Yorker, the music of Billy Joel has always resonated with me on a deeper level than with the average casual fan. My first show was a Billy Joel concert at Giants Stadium. An Innocent Man, The Bridge and Storm Front were the albums of my youth, but my favorite album from the Piano Man is Turnstiles. It is a quintessential New York album. A record that signals Joel’s return to New York after his time in Hollywood. Several songs reference New York, including the apocalyptic masterpiece “Miami 2017 (I’ve Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)” – a prog rock anomaly and a hell of a closer from the Piano Man.
It might be my favorite Billy Joel song because even as it portrayed the downfall of New York City, it seemed to celebrate it with a sense of pride and nostalgia that can’t be fathomed with any other city. The song is narrated by a grandfather telling his grandchildren about the fictitious fall of NYC in the 70’s as he sits in his retirement home in Miami some forty years later. “Miami 2017” did something very few art forms are able to accomplish. It used a fictitious story to remind us of the things in reality that we really love and the things we might even die for.
“THEY SENT A CARRIER OUT FROM NORFOLK. AND PICKED THE YANKEES UP FOR FREE. THEY SAID THAT QUEENS COULD STAY. THEY BLEW THE BRONX AWAY. AND SANK MANHATTAN OUT AT SEA.”