CoronaVinyl Day 290 (J): An Innocent Man by Billy Joel

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "J," and I have multiple albums left by multiple "J" artists I've already featured, so I figured I'll go with a Billy Joel album, since I haven't featured one of his albums since last July.  It's his massive ninth studio album, 1983's An Innocent Man.

This was an album that was in the regular rotation in my house after it came out.  I remember listening to it a lot as a six- and seven-year-old.  By this time, Billy Joel was a bona fide star, though his previous studio album, 1982's The Nylon Curtain, was a relative step sideways, "only" going to #7 on the Billboard album chart, producing "only" one Top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and "only" going double platinum in the U.S.

An Innocent Man is arguably his biggest album, other than maybe The Stranger.  The album is an homage to '50s and '60s soul, rock, and doo wop, with each song being a tribute to a particular artist or two from the '50s or '60s, from James Brown and Wilson Pickett ("Easy Money") to several doo wop groups ("The Longest Time" and "This Night") to Motown ("Tell Her About It") to Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis ("Christie Lee") to Betty Wright's "Clean Up Woman" ("Keeping The Faith"), among others.  There's lots of blue-eyed soul and horns, and it's just a fun album.

The album went to #4 on the Billboard album chart -- his fifth of eight consecutive studio albums that got at least to #7 on the Billboard album chart -- and it stayed on the chart for 111 weeks, as well as over a year on the album charts in Australia, Japan, and the UK.  It also ended up as the #4 album on Billboard's Year-End album chart for 1984.

It also featured an impressive six Top 30 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including his second #1 hit, "Tell Her About It," as well as "Uptown Girl" (#3), the title track (#10), "The Longest Time" (#14), "Keeping The Faith" (#18), and "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" (#27).  The album eventually went 7x platinum in the U.S.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Easy Money"
The album kicks off with a punchy, soulful homage to James Brown and Wilson Pickett.  The song was the title track of the Rodney Dangerfield movie of the same name.  It has great horns, breaks like James Brown songs would have, and a Memphis Soul feel.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Uptown Girl"
Joel's homage to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is spot on, from Joel's solid impression of Valli to the backing vocals and arc of the song.  The fish-out-of-water, working class meets upper class story was inspired by his relationships with Elle Macpherson and then his girlfriend (and eventually wife) Christie Brinkley, the latter of whom starred in the video for the song.  Even though I didn't know what "uptown" or "downtown" meant when I was six, I got the point of the song -- that there's always hope for a guy to outkick his coverage.