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 The Legends of Laurel Canyon
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best
Karen Dalton
Transfiguration of Vincent
M. Ward
Muswell Hillbillies
Kinks
Christmas in the Heart
Bob Dylan
Glitter and Doom Live
Tom Waits
Let It Roll: The Best of George Harrison
George Harrison
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
Elvis Costello
Playing for Change
Songs Around the World
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Billy Joel
By now, it is fairly obvious that reviewing any Billy Joel album is a futile exercise. Critics have done a pretty good job of skewering him over the years, and Joel has done an admirable job of skewering them right back All the while, his fans ate it up, and his critics just tried to ignore him (which would require avoiding virtually every radio station in the country).
“12 Gardens Live” does nothing to alleviate this situation, which is to say that Joel’s fans will love every second of it, while the critics will simply not listen. If that’s what it takes to keep the peace, so be it. No critics were harmed in the making of this live 2-disk set, so it exists as a pleasant live career retrospective for the fans who have remained faithful throughout the past decade (which saw no new material from Joel) and have grown restive for some new product Rather than reinvent his material or add a few new twists, Joel performs the well-known ‘studio’ version of each song with startling accuracy, right down to the obviously dated synthesizer parts of “Angry Young Man” or the wildman jazz trumpet of Zanzibar.” The mission of “12 Gardens” is to please and reward his fan base, not to try their patience, and it succeeds admirably.
The nostalgia of the event is impossible to deny. Nobody has ever accused me of liking Billy Joel too much, but even a hardened old sod like myself felt touched when hearing old numbers from my teen years, like “Ballad of Billy the Kid” and “Miami 2017.” The ‘contemporary’ material (I use that term loosely) is also well-chosen, avoiding tunes that (in my own opinion) have aged terribly, such as “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.,” while including ‘timeless’ classics such “River of Dreams” and the always beautiful “And So It Goes.” Ultimately, there is nothing about “12 Gardens” that is bound to change anybody’s mind, but as far as Billy Joel and his fans are concerned, it’s still all right by them.
P.S. – Oops – Sounds like I spoke too soon about “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.” It pops up as a bonus track…which is unfortunate to me, but not enough to ruin the package.
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