This review is an edited facebook note I wrote on August 20th, 2010. I wanted to start publishing something. New reviews coming soon.
3.1/5
"The Nylon Curtain" is an interesting album. It's Billy Joel doing a concept thing about Baby Boomers of the Reagan Era--so, we have a couple songs about war, and some about suburban living (rather, songs about 'love' with suburban living as a backdrop), and 'Allentown' and 'Where's The Orchestra" as actual musical bookends to the album.
My beef about this album is that the instrumentation and mix seems to be theme and variations on "drown out" and watered down--the voice is pretty far back, and the production is sometimes harsh when we'd want it to be warm. Joel's nerdy grit here never really reveals itself as nerdy or artistic, and the vocals and production definitely come off as forced and/or phoned in. Best tracks (hard to say because 'A Room Of Our Own' would be really good if the instrumentation were different and the mix was less watery) 'Allentown', 'Goodnight Saigon', ' 'Where's The Orchestra'. 'Pressure' tries.
Good news: there do not seem to be any filler tracks here. They all serve a purpose.
Bad news: I'm not exactly sure what that purpose is, or what kind of deeper-than-shallow feeling Billy Joel wants to leave us with.
To try to clarify my thoughts, let's look at "The Stranger." It's Joel's best concept album because it doesn't try to foist a concept on you; it's his best concept album because it ISN'T a concept album--it's just a well-produced, smoothly running collection of great songs about stories, inner lives, and people. "The Nylon Curtain"s philosophy seems to be one of good songwriting hidden behind strained production, instrumentation, and Joel's grit.
BUT, and YET, again, there are no really weak tracks here; it's better than "Storm Front"; there are some cool, memorable moments to be found; it's Billy Joel; it's an attempt at a tightly knit concept-y album, and for that we are grateful.
-Willie
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