- #Uptown girl billy joel and the mechanics cracked#
- #Uptown girl billy joel and the mechanics series#
King / Drifters-esque title track coming next. CBS continued to mine the album, with the Ben E. where it could only peak at #3.Ī reactivated Tell Her About It swiftly made amends for its earlier failure, reaching #4 during a lengthy stay in the Top 10 over Christmas and the New Year. Curiously, the single was a lesser hit in the U.S.
Billy tells her all about it.įive weeks at #1, dethroning the mighty Karma Chameleon and holding off the likes of Lionel Richie, Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson and Paul Young (whose Love Of The Common People gave CBS a notable one-two on the British Top 40 in late 1983), Uptown Girl defied An Innocent Man‘s ignominious start (and its own slow lift-off, after entering at #94!), dragging the parent album into the UK Top 20 and eventually into the Top 3 by the end of the year. If its infectious, nagging melody and brilliant pastiche of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons wasn’t enough, the video arguably sealed the deal Joel memorably cast as a “downtown man” jobbing as a mechanic in the garage where the limousine belonging to Brinkley’s “uptown girl” pulls in for gas…cue a spot of West Side Story/Grease-style choreography. Though the majority of An Innocent Man‘s material is an exercise in characterisation and riffing on timeless, classical pop writing tropes, its inspiration came from Joel’s sense of “feeling like a teenager again” after the divorce from his first wife was followed by spending time with, amongst others, model Christie Brinkley. The key song, the one which really launched the album into people’s consciousness in the U.K., and the one which most obviously referenced the newfound joy and freedom in his personal life, was Uptown Girl. Placed into context, it was 21 places lower than the debut position of Y&T’s latest album, Mean Streak. Over in Britain, however, it was a different story Tell Her About It failed to reach even the Top 75, and An Innocent Man‘s first appearance on the chart would be at a dismal #56. Tell Her About It evoked the winning urgency of classic Motown, sounding not a million miles from something Daryl Hall & John Oates were coming up with around 1982/1983, while the lyrics were smart and cliche-free. In common with all the songs on the album, it was a homage to the music of Billy Joel’s youth, which took in Soul, R&B, Doo Wop, Motown, Stax and Rock & Roll. The Innocent Man campaign got off to the best possible start in America, with lead single Tell Her About It going all the way to #1. Interestingly it was released on the same week in September 1982 as another downbeat record from a major CBS act, Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen (was it merely coincidence that both artists followed up these albums with massively crowd-pleasing efforts?).
#Uptown girl billy joel and the mechanics cracked#
Allentown and Goodnight Saigon became acknowledged classics in his repertoire, but none of the singles cracked the U.S. His previous album, The Nylon Curtain, had been only a modest seller, lacking the usual major hit single and weighed down by a bleaker, socio-political outlook. The second half of 1983 would see Lionel Richie truly come of age as a solo megastar courtesy of Can’t Slow Down, but more surprisingly it would also give us by far the most popular period of Billy Joel’s career thanks to An Innocent Man and its seven….yes, seven….singles, spread over more than 18 months. In what now seems a vintage year for some of the ’70s biggest artists, even Elton John had managed to find his mojo again with the excellent Too Low For Zero set, and its smash singles I’m Still Standing and I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues. During June and July, The Police spent an eternity at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with Every Breath You Take and its parent album Synchronicity was proving immovable at the summit. A refocused, energised and utterly commercial David Bowie was back on the scene. charts were also in thrall to the “second British Invasion” of Culture Club, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. When it first arrived in UK stores in the late summer of 1983, things didn’t look too promising….ġ983 was the year when Michael Jackson’s Thriller swept all before it, blazing a trail with a succession of hit singles, memorable videos and a chart run that lasted close to two years of peak popularity.
#Uptown girl billy joel and the mechanics series#
We return to AFDPJ’s ongoing series with a look at the most successful album of Billy Joel’s career.