History YMMV / BillyJoel

* FriendlyFandoms: Reflecting their real-life friendship, Billy Joel's fans tend to be fans of Music/EltonJohn since both of them are pianists who became popular around the same time and are staples of oldies radio.

* SignatureSong: "Captain Jack", "Piano Man", "Uptown Girl", "We Didn't Start the Fire" and are his four big ones.

* FirstInstallmentWins: More like ''Fifth'' Installment Wins in this case, as most critics often declare ''The Stranger'' to be his best album.

* SignatureSong: "Piano Man", "Uptown Girl", "We Didn't Start the Fire" and are his three big ones.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" doesn't let history get in the way of a good story. About the only thing it gets right is that he was an outlaw. Although Joel admits he was never going for accuracy and wrote the song as "an experiment with an impressionist type of lyric".
** The real Billy the Kid was from New York, not West Virginia.
** He is not known to have robbed any banks. Rather, he gained notoriety as a cattle rustler and participant in the Lincoln County War.
** No records ever place him in Colorado, Utah, or Oklahoma. His most famous activities were pretty much all in the New Mexico territory.
** The song claims he always rode alone, but he actually rode with the Lincoln County Regulators for much of his criminal career.
** He was shot to death, not hanged.

* {{Squick}}:
** The "instant pleasuredome" line in "You're My Home".
%%** "Captain Jack" counts as well.

* CriticalDissonance: He's never been a critical favorite, but is still a major star.

* HarsherInHindsight: "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)" is about the violent destruction of New York, written to mock the doomsaying [re: the skyrocketing crime rate and plummeting property values] of the time of its writing. Joel sang the song at a number of 9/11 tribute concerts to defy the trope. His performance of it at the Concert For New York City, held less than a month after 9/11, actually turned it into a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}},[[note]]"I wrote that song 25 years ago, I thought it was gonna be a science fiction song... [[FunnyAneurysmMoment I never thought it would actually happen]]. But unlike the end of that song, we ain't going nowhere!"[[/note]] and he sang it again at an NBC benefit concert telethon for victims of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In the latter he even changed one line of lyrics to reference the serious damage sustained by Staten Island in the storm.
* HilariousInHindsight: In "Uptown Girl", "I bet she never had [[Music/BackstreetBoys a Backstreet Guy]]..."
** In the music video for "Tell Her About It", [[https://youtu.be/p0pM5dm--yQ?t=84 there's a girl]] who looks just like Music/TaylorSwift... and she's breaking up with someone.

* MagnificentBastard: "The Ballad of Billy the Kid": UsefulNotes/BillyTheKid himself is a boy who moves to Colorado from West Virginia. He decides to take up {{bank robbery}}, taking the teller by surprise with his [[YoungGun youth]]. This begins a series of increasingly daring robberies and gunfights that grant him [[LivingLegend legendary status amomgst cowboys]], including the very townspeople he robbed. After sacking banks from Utah to Oklahoma, Billy is captured and [[FaceDeathWithDignity accepts his hanging with dignity]], his death witnessed by lawmen and outlaws from across the West.

* NightmareFuel: The video for "Pressure." The cover of the ''Piano Man'' album is a bit freaky as well.

** "Piano Man" is very biographic. He was supporting himself by playing in a piano bar while waiting out a bad record deal and thought no one would believe his story, so he wrote a song about it. Everyone in the song is based on a real person.

** "Movin' Out" is a mostly harmless song, but the sound effects of screeching tires can be heard in the middle of the song... which is not exactly a kind thing for drivers to hear on the radio.

* SignatureSong: "Piano Man", "Uptown Girl", "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "River of Dreams" are his four big ones.

** The "instant pleasuredome" line in "You're My Home."
** "Captain Jack" counts as well.
* TearJerker: If you live in New York--or really anywhere in the New York metro area--then "Miami 2017 (I've Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway)" can definitely be this. The same can be said about "New York State Of Mind."

** "To Make You Feel My Love" wasn't even a Joel original- it was written and first performed by Music/BobDylan... meaning that Joel was on both ends of this trope with the same song.

* CriticalResearchFailure: "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" doesn't let history get in the way of a good story. Not a single detail in it is accurate.
** The real Billy the Kid was from New York, not West Virginia.
** He is not known to have robbed any banks. Rather, he gained notoriety as a cattle rustler and participant in the Lincoln County War.
** No records ever place him in Colorado, Utah, or Oklahoma. His most famous activities were pretty much all in the New Mexico territory.
** The song claims he always rode alone, but he actually rode with the Lincoln County Regulators for much of his criminal career.
** He was shot to death, not hanged.

** "Shameless" and "To Make You Feel My Love" are both more famous through their covers by Music/GarthBrooks.

** "We Didn't Start the Fire" is Narmy for its ridiculous premise of [[ListSong singing a list]] of major events in modern history to a repetitive and simplistic melody, but that's [[WeDidntStartTheBillyJoelParodys half of]] what makes it so enjoyable.

* NarmCharm: The video for "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" is corny beyond all belief, but doesn't detract from the song's message about suicide.

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** A minor example. "Only The Good Die Young", has the lyric "you got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation", the sacrament of First Holy ''Communion'' is the one with the white dress.
** ''Major'' example: Not a single detail of "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" is historically accurate.
*** He did not "start with a bank in Colorado," and indeed never robbed a bank. His main criminal activities were cattle rustling, horse thieving, and feud killings.
*** He did not "rob his way from Utah to Oklahoma". He stayed in New Mexico.
*** He was not hanged. He was shot.

* EarWorm:
** "We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning..." Even worse [[SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein if you know the lyrics]].
** "Pressure", "Allentown", "Uptown Girl", "Tell Her About It", "My Life", "Big Shot", "Piano Man", "The Entertainer", "Just The Way You Are", "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", "Sometimes a Fantasy", "You May Be Right", "It's Still Rock And Roll To Me" "I Go To Extremes"---he is a king of ear worm-writers.
** "Only the Good Die Young" is one of the catchiest songs of all time.
** "Only Human (Second Wind)" is another. Try getting that synth out of your head. I dare you!

* DespairEventHorizon: From "Piano Man": "'Bill, I believe this is killing me', as the smile ran away from his face..."

* PainfulRhyme: "Uptown Girl" features the world/girl combination. Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] since it's on an album that's a pastiche of 50s and 60s music styles, when that word combination ran rampant.

* CoveredUp: "Shameless" and "To Make You Feel My Love" are both more famous through their covers by Music/GarthBrooks.

* EarWorm: "We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning..." Even worse [[SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein if you know the lyrics]].

* HarsherInHindsight: "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)" is about the violent destruction of New York, written to mock the doomsaying [re: the skyrocketing crime rate and plummeting property values] of the time of its writing. Joel sang the song at a number of 9/11 tribute concerts to defy the trope.
** His performance of it at the Concert For New York City, held less than a month after 9/11, actually turned it into a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}}.
--> "I wrote that song 25 years ago, I thought it was gonna be a science fiction song... [[FunnyAneurysmMoment I never thought it would actually happen]]. But unlike the end of that song, we ain't going nowhere!"
--> (Thunderous applause)
** He sang it again at an NBC benefit concert telethon for victims of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. He even changed one line of lyrics to reference the serious damage sustained by Staten Island in the storm.

* HoYay: [[WordOfGod Billy observes]] that there is a lot of it in the shower scenes in his "Allentown" video, something he didn't notice at the time.

-->James,\\

* NarmCharm / SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: The video for "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" is corny beyond all belief, but doesn't detract from the song's message.

* PainfulRhyme:
** "Uptown Girl" features the world/girl combination.
** Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] since it's on an album that's a pastiche of 50s and 60s music styles, when that word combination ran rampant.

* {{Squick}}: The "instant pleasuredome" line in "You're My Home."

* TearJerker: If you live in New York--or really anywhere in the New York metro area--then "Miami 2017 (I've Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway)" can definitely be this.
** The same can be said about "New York State Of Mind."

* CriticalResearchFailure: A minor example. "Only The Good Die Young", has the lyric "you got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation", the sacrament of First Holy ''Communion'' is the one with the white dress.

** It may just refer to the subject's wedding dress.

* HarsherInHindsight: "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)" is about the violent destruction of New York, despite being written before 9/11/2001. Joel sang the song at a number of 9/11 tribute concerts to defy the trope.

** "We Didn't Start The Fire" includes the lyrics, "terror on the airline"