Music / Storm Front (Album)

There's a storm front coming (mood indigo)
Small craft warning on the radio.

Call me a joker, call me a fool
Right at this moment, I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight

— "I Go To Extremes"

Storm Front is the eleventh studio album recorded by American pop musician Billy Joel. It was released through Columbia Records on October 17, 1989.

The album brought another shake-up to Billy's backing band—now, only David Brown and Liberty DeVitto remained from the original line-up. It was just the beginning of a Troubled Production.

During recording, Billy fired his manager, Frank Weber, who was also the brother of his (first) ex-wife; he was discovered to be mismanaging Billy's finances. He would ultimately win back only a fraction of the money he lost, though he did win a counter-suit. He would later sue his former attorney in connection to the fraud, which was settled out-of-court in 1992.

Having ended his work with Phil Ramone, Billy would co-produce the album with Mick Jones, famously of Foreigner. They decided to take the sound harder and more contemporary, punctuated by its first and biggest single, "We Didn't Start the Fire", which listed pop culture events from the previous 40 years to the point of recording—essentially, Billy's life to that point.

The album went quadruple-Platinum in the United States, and Platinum in the United Kingdom. It produced seven singles: "We Didn't Start the Fire", "Leningrad", "I Go to Extremes", "The Downeaster 'Alexa'", "That's Not Her Style", "And So It Goes", and "Shameless". Only "Fire" and "Extremes" reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, with "Fire" becoming his third #1 single.

Tracklist

Side One

1. "That's Not Her Style" (5:10)
2. "We Didn't Start the Fire" (4:50)
3. "The Downeaster 'Alexa'" (3:44)
4. "I Go to Extremes" (4:23)
5. "Shameless" (4:26)

Side Two

1. "Storm Front" (5:17)
2. "Leningrad" (4:06)
3. "State of Grace" (4:30)
4. "When in Rome" (4:44)
5. "And So It Goes" (3:38)

Personnel

• Billy Joel - vocals, acoustic piano, clavinet, accordion, percussion, Hammond organ, harpsichord, organ, synthesizers
• Jeff Jacobs - synthesizers, backing vocals, horn arrangements
• David Brown - lead guitar, MIDI guitar solo
• Joey Hunting - rhythm guitar
• Schuyler Deale - bass guitar
• Liberty DeVitto - drums, percussion
• Crystal Taliefero - backing vocals, percussion

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"But when we are gone, it will still trope on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on..."

• Children Are Innocent: "Leningrad". The general meaning is that all children are innocent, and all of them feel pain from conflict, no matter which side they're on.
• Coins for the Dead: In the final verse and chorus of the music video for "We Didn't Start the Fire", the father has coins over his eyes at his funeral.
• List Song: "We Didn't Start the Fire" lists events, roughly in chronological order, from 1949 to 1989.
• "Not So Different" Remark: "Leningrad", where he details his friendship between himself and a Russian clown he met while touring the Soviet Union who was born in the forties. (The song was written during the Cold War.)
• Sad Clown: A quite literal example in "Leningrad", about a Russian who used to be a soldier but took up a decidedly apolitical job as a clown because it made children laugh.
• A Storm Is Coming: The opening line of the chorus to "Storm Front" is "There's a storm front coming".
• Tuckerization: "The Downeaster Alexa", featuring a sailboat named after his daughter.
• We Didn't Start the Billy Joel Parodies: Naturally, the Trope Namer is the biggest hit on this album.

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