Billy Joel The Nylon Curtain

Bargain Audio CDs & Priceless Collection (series)

Also available in a 3-pack with THE BRIDGE and STORM FRONT.

This edition of THE NYLON CURTAIN is an Enhanced CD containing both a full audio program as well as video clips for the songs "Pressure," "Goodnight Saigon" and "She's Right On Time."

Personnel: Billy Joel (vocals, harmonica, piano, Hammond organ, keyboards, synthesizer); Russell Javors, David Brown (guitar); Charles McCracken (cello); Eddie Daniels (clarinet, saxophone); Dom Cortese (accordion); Dave Grusin (horns); Liberty DeVito (electric piano, drums, percussion); Doug Stegmeyer (bass); Bill Zampino (drums, percussion).

Recorded at A&R Recording Studios & Media Sound Studios, New York, New York.

Digitally remastered by Ted Jensen (Sterling Sound, New York, New York).

What may be Billy Joel's most satisfying album is also probably his weirdest. THE NYLON CURTAIN is loaded with Beatlesque vocal effects, claustrophobic arrangements and socially conscious songs about unemployment (the hit "Allentown"), Vietnam ("Goodnight Saigon," which opens with the sound of helicopter rotors) and sexual politics ("Laura"). This isn't the kind of album Joel's fans had come to expect, nor is it much like what Joel went on to do later. Think of THE NYLON CURTAIN as a one-off concept album that works because the one thing Joel retained here was his deft pop touch, and to hear him apply it to a relatively "difficult" album is well worth the work. Parental advisory: Joel uses a seven-letter conjugation of the F-word in "Laura," which just wasn't done at the time, not in mainstream pop albums anyway. And he goes out of his way to enunciate it.