Track Listing

1. Allentown
2. Laura
3. Pressure
4. Goodnight Saigon
5. She's Right On Time
6. Room Of Our Own
7. Surprises
8. Scandinavian Skies
9. Where's The Orchestra

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13479 in Music
• Released on: 2001-04-02
• Number of discs: 1

CD Description
What may be Billy Joel's most satisfying album is also probably his weirdest. THE NYLON CURTAIN is loaded with Beatlesque vocal effects, claustrophobic arrangements and socially conscious songs about unemployment (the hit "Allentown"), Vietnam ("Goodnight Saigon", which opens with the sound of helicopter rotors) and sexual politics ("Laura"). This isn't thekind of album Joel's fans had come to expect, nor is it much like what Joel went on to do later. Think of THE NYLON CURTAIN as a one-off concept album that works because the one thing Joel retained here was his deft pop touch, and to hear him apply it to a relatively "difficult" album is well worththe work. Parental advisory: Joel uses a seven-letter conjugation of the F-word in "Laura", which just wasn't done at the time, not in mainstream pop albums anyway. And he goes out of his way to enunciate it.

Customer Reviews

Billy Joel's most underrated album
Maybe it's because there aren't any love songs on this that it's so uncelebrated, because this is a simply brilliant album.
"Allentown" opens things up with vital force and that continues through the first side, ending with another political song, the Vietnam lament "Goodnight Saigon", a genuine epic.
In between, you find "Pressure", which is the best rock song Joel ever recorded.
As for the second side, it's full of unexpected numbers: "Scandinavian Skies" is really intriguing, and the closer "Where's The Orchestra?" has yet another fantastic lyric to accompany a mournful melody.
If you want Joel at his warmest, buy "An Innocent Man", if you want Joel at his most melodic, buy "The Stranger", but if you want Joel at his most intelligent, buy "The Nylon Curtain". A fantastic collection of songs that bears repeated listening.

Definately His Best Album
Billy Joel's The Nylon Curtain is his finest album ever, and one of his earliest.

It has 9 traks, some of which (Allentown, She's Right On Time, Goodnight Saigon) are not just a few of my favourite Billy Joel Songs, but are a few of my favourite songs in general.

A piano and vocal only track finishes the album. Where's The Orchestra is also a good song.

Overall this has to be his best album

Billy meets The Beatles
If the Beatles had kept on going this is the type of music we could have expected them to produce by the early '80s. I can't pay this masterpiece of an album a better compliment that that. Marvellous.