80's Music Review: Billy Joel's An Innocent Man (1983)

Brilliant and Joyful, Less Angst and More Optimism

Other tracks on "An Innocent Man" are diverse and satisfying, and had companion music videos that jump-started their chart-topping success. "Uptown Girl" (his optimistic fairy tale of a rich debutant falling in love with a grease monkey living on the wrong side of the tracks, a blatant salute to Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons) and "Christie Lee" (homage to 1950s piano-thumping legend Jerry Lee Lewis and jazz-sax-great Phil Woods, protégé of Charlie Parker, per his 2009 JazzWax interview) are bouncy and exhilarating. Joel was like a giddy schoolboy in his relationship with girl-next-door cover girl and supermodel Christie Brinkley (they were married two years later and were divorced in 1994). Many tracks on the album reflected his peace of mind following his divorce from first wife, Elizabeth Weber; they were thinly veiled tributes to Brinkley, per some critics, or a natural by-product of his relationship with her. Although Brinkley appeared in the music video of Uptown Girl, it is disputed that the song was actually written about her. Some critics say it was written about fashion model Elle MacPherson, whom Joel dated six months before Brinkley. In a 2006 TimesOnline interview, Joel revealed that the song was originally titled "Uptown Girls," and was inspired by a chance meeting with Brinkley, McPherson, and then-model Whitney Houston.

Mark Rivera's masterful alto saxophone solos are employed beautifully in "Keeping the Faith," "This Night," and "Christie Lee," giving the songs an ageless quality. The music video for "Keeping the Faith," that of Joel facing a judge in a court of law where everyone ends up singing and dancing, is absurd and hasn't aged well, in my opinion (the video really "jumps the shark," and we never really know why or for what offense Joel has been charged). But back in the 1980s, music videos were increasingly influential in boosting record sales, no matter how goofy. Case in point: the pop/rock single "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" was one of the few songs that had no accompanying music video, and didn't sell as many singles as Joel's other singles on the album. A competent, lovely song, it reached only #27 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts, becoming the only released single from the album that did not reach the top 25 of the chart. Not having a music video made a huge difference in cash receipts.

All songs on "An Innocent Man" were penned by Joel, although he borrowed heavily from Ludwig van Beethoven's 1798 emotional Pathétique Sonata (Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 13, 2nd movement) as the foundation for the haunting chorus in "This Night." The album peaked at Number 4 on the Billboard 200 charts on November 12, 1983, and ended up with six top-30 singles, the most of any album in Joel's catalog.

While touring in 2006, Joel expressed mixed emotions about performing songs from the 1983 album. He said in his TimesOnline interview, "That whole album An Innocent Man was a homage to The Four Seasons. Frankie Valli sings as though someone's squeezing him in the corleones, you know. It's supposed to sound like you're in pain. But, that's easier to do in the recording studio than night after night on tour."