He's not The Boss of me!
I'm a Long Island girl, which means I'll always have a certain amount of appreciation for the lite-rock piano stylings of Mr. Billy Joel. No matter how punk rock he isn't. A friend and I were just discussing this tendency of Long Islanders to worship the man, and ... well, here's the exchange:
On 1/30/08 2:45 PM, [Redacted] wrote:
[Some nonsense that alluded to "We Didn't Start the Fire."]
speaking of good billy joel songs that i need on my ipod-
i actually didn't tell ya'll about The Sopranos bar in Aruba which had all of the young Long EEEEEYeland kids asking to sing Billy Joel songs- I honestly don't get that- I'm from Boston but I don't request Aerosmith all the time-
On 1/30/08 3:37 PM, [eh] wrote:
That’s 'cause you should be requesting the Pixies all the time.
Naw, I don’t think all Long Island kids are like that. I was into the Joelster for a brief period in college, but that was more homesickness than anything else. I think he just has a deep catalogue that people respond to more universally than Aerosmith. And, like, New Jersey folk are that way about The Boss. It might be easier to get behind a native son singer songwriter, than a band, too. There’s more of an emotional connection with Joel and Springsteen than there is with Steven Tyler (which could have something to do with their respective musical styles as well). I smell blog entry ...
What do you guys think? Are there any other bands/singers that are so strongly associated with a location, and have such loyal hometown fans? I guess Bon Jovi and Jersey again. But who else?
eh.www.amNY.com
Comments (1)
For me that band would be Sonic Youth, they can do no wrong in my book and I love em to death. But there's others, I guess Lou Reed/VU would be near the top of this list.
Also I should mention one of my new current NYC favs- Jeffrey Lewis, who I saw last night at Merc. Lounge. How ironic that he gets buried under the mass of Vampire Weekend hype. (BTW- show was fantastic, one highlight for me was "Short History of Punk 1950 to 1977" (both the acoustic demo version and album version of VU "Im Waiting for the Man", plus some snippets of Holy Modal Rounders, The Fugs, The Godz, David Peel, the Stooges("1969"), NY Dolls("Personality Crisis"), Patti Smith("Gloria"), and Richard Hell/Voidoids ("Blank Generation"). I think that about covers it. Other than the Stooges, all NYC bands, yes?