Billy Joel says his old music is "juvenile"--giving inadvertent finger to longtime fans.

In 1982, Billy Joel took an artistic leap forward with the album THE NYLON CURTAIN.  As a result, he wanted to ensure he'd read good reviews from rock critics instead of bad ones.  So, around that time, a more-positive relationship was created between Billy and ROLLING STONE. 

Prior to that, Billy Joel received variable reviews from the biweekly publication.  Positive ones overall for THE STRANGER and 52ND STREET, but then the late Paul Nelson dinged him for 1980's GLASS HOUSES.  If memory is correct, Nelson wrote that Billy came off like "a drunken fratboy putting the make on an airline stewardess."

Anyway, Billy got good treatment from ROLLING STONE hereafter.  He retired from making pop/rock albums in 1993, but would occasionally tour.  And Sony/Columbia reshuffled Billy's existing song catalog to dribble out hits compilations, live albums, album reissues and one rarities-dominated box set to the fan base.

And for the past twenty years, Jann Wenner and ROLLING STONE have continued publishing Billy Joel stories, regardless of valid readership interest.

This week, there's another Billy Joel one-page puff interview in ROLLING STONE (the issue with the cover story on Rihanna--haven't read it yet but I'm assuming it tries to spin the Chris Brown re-relationship in a positive rather than pathetic victim-goes-back-to-victimizer way).  It avoids mentioning the 412th compilation (this time of love songs), but centers on good notices for Billy's participation in recent NY hurricane benefit shows.

And then Billy Joel proceeds to call his pre-retirement music "juvenile."

This longtime fan's blood pressure went up upon reading that passage.

The logic is: it's okay/financially and morally defensible to keep making money by having Sony repackage the old "juvenile" music, but Billy can't be bothered to, say, create a second "adult" classical album or even another Broadway show (remembering the Twyla Tharp dance concept show MOVIN' OUT from the previous decade).

Fine if he wants to be Charles Foster Kane shuffling in ultracomfort between Manhattan and Hamptons Xanadus.

But if Billy Joel wants nothing more to do with actively creating music for ears other than his own, then it should be time for him and Jann Wenner to can the solipsistic crap periodically appearing in ROLLING STONE.

Criticism--and the supersensitive/vindictive reaction to it--in rock and roll.

Recently, I read the late Paul Nelson's book of interviews with Clint Eastwood--CONVERSATIONS WITH CLINT.

Now, I'm onto EVERYTHING IS AN AFTERTHOUGHT: THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PAUL NELSON (edited by Kevin Avery).

Some choice tidbits from the book:
Stephen Holden on artists who Jann Wenner considered sacred cows in ROLLING STONE:
"Jann would insist on positive reviews for his personal friends, including Boz Scaggs and Art Garfunkel, in particular, and Jimmy Webb.  They got lots of coverage and they always got positive reviews."

Paul Nelson's personal friendship with Jackson Browne (Browne's album THE PRETENDER was a Nelson favorite) came to an end when Nelson panned J.D. Souther's (Souther is now probably best known for songwriting--with hits for the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt--rather than his singing/recording career) album YOU'RE ONLY LONELY.

From the review:
"These days, J.D. Souther is mostly a parody of the sensitive California singer/songwriter.  He's calendar art, the aural equivalent of a Kodak color slide: leaves turning in the autumn as photographed by Felicia Filigree of Vassar.  He's so lazy that too often his songs have trouble holding even the most cliched poses, because their creator can't be bothered to supply the necessary conviction, much less any at all. 'If you don't want my love/Well, there's nothing I can do.' he mewls, sounding like he's mildly annoyed because his Perrier is getting warm."

Don Henley wrote an angry letter to ROLLING STONE (keep in mind that ROLLING STONE was then considered THE major rock magazine) that began:
"Paul Nelson's blade seems to be getting too big for him to carry.  He's so busy being cute and is such an obviously biased little prick, he invalidates his own reviews."

Then the book goes on to recount a conversation Nelson had with Jackson Browne concerning the Souther album:
Jackson Browne: "It was if he had wasted his time [two years] making this record.  It was as if his first record, which you liked, was made last week, and this week he didn't do so well.  Now, I don't think that's the job of the reviewer--if you don't mind my telling you your job this once.  I think often reviewers are given assignments and they write about something and they might not care for the thing.  They may be actually pissed off that they have to write about it, and that anger gets handed over to the artist."
Paul Nelson: "If I don't like John David's album, I dont see anything wrong with my saying that I don't like it."
Browne: "By the end of the review, I still didn't know why you didn't like it."
Nelson: "Because I thought it was real narcissistic."
"You know," Browne snapped his fingers, "that can be said just like that.  I disagree.  But I think it could be said without cultural references like Perrier and the amount of money one might have made."
"I wanted to shake him up," Paul shot back, "Which I told you in advance when we talked, that I thought--"
Browne: "No, you didn't tell me in advance.  You told me after you'd written it and before I had read it."

The punchline to this SoCal rock story:
Jackson Browne read the review of the Souther album and called Nelson "and demanded to know how he could've written such a thing."

Nelson was planning on writing a Jackson Browne biography before the Souther review blowup and Browne killed the project, saying "Well, I don't see how we can do a book now.  I couldn't go and do a book with the journalist that had savaged my friend."

And that's how people behave when they have money and the stakes are higher than, say, the poetry community (where similar behavior occurs too).