Columbia 3638
Producer: Phil Ramone
Track listing: You May Be Right / Sometimes a Fantasy / Don’t Ask Me Why / It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me / All For Leyna / I Don’t Want to Be Alone / Sleeping with the Television On / C’Etait Toi (You Were the One) / Close to the Borderline / Through the Long Night
June 14, 1980
6 weeks
Following the success of 52nd Street, Billy Joel hit the road with a tour that found him headlining huge outdoor stadiums. Playing before such large audiences was bound to have an affect on his music, and it can be heard on Glass Houses.
“I wanted to write bigger songs that had a lot of energy in them,” Joel says. “By the time I started writing songs for Glass Houses, I felt I needed to do songs that were bigger, could be louder, a lot faster, shorter, and punchier.”
By 1980, the influence of new wave and punk couldn’t be denied, even by Joel, a superstar who was primarily considered to be a pop crooner prior to Glass Houses. “There was a new wave influence, but I wasn’t trying to do new wave,” says Joel, who thought the new wave acts were little more than an update of the bands that he grew up listening to, including the Standells, Them, the Shadows of the Knight, and ? & the Mysterians. “That was really where my inspiration came from, not so much from the new wave bands in 1980, but the mid-’60s power-pop bands.” Joel expressed those sentiments in “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” the album’s second single, which became Joel’s first Number One hit. The tune also found Joel taking aim at rock critics and at the very relevance of rock criticism.
If that doesn’t sound like an earthshaking subject, Joel would be the first to agree. “A lot of the subject matter is fairly juvenile,” Joel says. “A song like ‘All For Leyna’ could have been written by a 16-year-old. I was actually thinking like a 16-year-old when I did write that.”
The album wasn’t an all-out rockfest, however, as it closed with the ballad “Through the Long Night.” Says Joel, “That was a departure from most everything else that is on the album. That’s all me doing the harmonies.” While Joel says cutting that track was a “pain in the ass,” Glass Houses was generally a pleasant experience. “That was one of the most fun albums I’ve ever made,” he recalls. “Not so much that it was fun to write, but it was fun to record and play. It was very simple and the production aspects on that album were very noticeable.”
On some tracks, Joel’s vocals go from a double-tracking effect to completely dry, a feel that veteran producer Phil Ramone was initially hesitant to employ. “It was kind of Elvis Presley-ish in a way,” says Ramone. “It was a side of Billy that people really hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t this overproduced, lush artist. His statement ‘It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me’ is very much about what Glass Houses was about. It was a good turning point. It kept his career and his momentum in a very direct with his audience.”
Glass Houses hit the top in its 13th week on the chart, becoming Joel’s second consecutive Number One album. While Joel’s other ’80s studio albums would continue to make the top 10, it would take him nearly a decade to return to the top.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of June 14, 1980
1. Glass Houses, Billy Joel
2. Against the Wind, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
3. Just One Night, Eric Clayton
4. The Wall, Pink Floyd
5. Mouth to Mouth, Lipps Inc.