Best article about why Billy Joel sucks ever

We once had a conversation about exactly this topic, and it's almost like Rosen was listening in. This is so exactly right, and helps explain alot of stuff about music. Ultimately, you realize, it's just sort of a character problem more than anything, which Rosen doesn't quite make clear, but I think we covered. But he/she is so totally right that what he should have been was one of those Brill Building people who didn't realize they were making art. And about the Paul McCartney thing.

Gabe gloms onto Zack's post again: Yes, Slate is plagiarizing us twice in one week, except that this time they have plagiarized a private conversation. Next: Slate introduces a new section called "Today's Sexual Fantasies," which look disturbingly familiar to a certain pair of Anglo-Jewish siblings....

One excellent thing that Rosen's piece has that our conversation did not is a link to a soundclip of a reggae version of "Only the Good Die Young." I was of the opinion that "OTGDY" was BJ's most fully realized work, because it's such a funny conceit (a rock'n'roll song about trying to convince a Catholic girl to risk Hell and fuck you; kind of like early Springsteen with a massive, embarrassing boner) and because he makes the complicated rhyme scheme (A-A-A-B-C-C-C-B-B) seem easy. But knowing that BJ experimented with this absurd reggae version makes it clear that the song is in fact just as lame as every other Billy Joel song.