Glass Houses (album)

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Glass Houses
Billy Joel - Glass Houses.jpg
Studio album by Billy Joel
Released March 12, 1980
Recorded 1979 at A&R Recording, New York City
Genre
Length 35:06
Label Family Productions/Columbia
Producer Phil Ramone
Billy Joel chronology
52nd Street
(1978)		 Glass Houses
(1980)		 Songs in the Attic
(1981)
Singles from Glass Houses (album)

Glass Houses is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on March 12, 1980.[5] It features Joel's first song to peak at  No.  1 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me". The album itself topped the Pop Albums chart for six weeks and was ranked  No.  4 on Billboard's 1980 year-end album chart.[6] The album is the 41st best selling album of the 1980s, with sales of 7.1 million copies in the U.S. alone. In 1981, Joel won a Grammy Award for "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" for his work on Glass Houses.[7] According to music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the album featured "a harder-edged sound" compared to Joel's other work, in response to the punk and new wave movements.[8] This was also the final studio album to feature the original incarnation (Joel, Richie Cannata, Doug Stegmeyer, Russell Javors and Liberty DeVitto) of the Billy Joel Band, augmented by new lead guitarist David Brown. Multi-instrumentalist Cannata left the band just before the sessions began for Joel's next studio album, 1982's The Nylon Curtain.

Background

This album was the third collaboration between Joel and producer Phil Ramone, following The Stranger and 52nd Street and the final such collaboration in association with Home Run.

Opening with the sound of glass shattering, Glass Houses has more of a hard rock feel than Joel's previous albums. The cover shows Joel poised to throw a rock through the two-story window of his real-life waterfront glass house in Cove Neck. On some versions, the back cover shows Joel looking through the hole that the rock made in the glass. This alludes to the adage that "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".[citation needed]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 4.5/5 stars[1]
Blender 3/5 stars[9]
Christgau's Record Guide B−[4]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music 3/5 stars[10]
The Great Rock Discography 6/10[11]
Record Mirror 4/5 stars[12]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide 3/5 stars[13]
Smash Hits 8/10[14]

Rolling Stone critic Paul Nelson stated: "Billy Joel writes smooth and cunning melodies, and what many of his defenders say is true: his material's catchy. But then, so's the flu."[15] In Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), Robert Christgau said: "From the straight-up hubba-hubba of 'You May Be Right' to the Rick Wakeman ostinatos of 'Sometimes a Fantasy' to the McCartneyesque melodicism of 'Don't Ask Me Why' to the what-it-is of 'It's Still Rock and Roll to Me,' it's all rock and roll to him, but to me it's closer to what pop meant before ironists and aesthetes, including yours truly, appropriated the term. Closer than any skinny-tie bands, that's for sure: gregarious, shameless, and above all profitable. Of course, if it doesn't make up in reach what it lacks in edge, ironists and aesthetes needn't notice it's there. And beyond 'Sleeping With the Television On,' I couldn't tell you thing one about side two, which I just played three times."[4]

In 2004, the pop-culture journalist and rock critic Chuck Klosterman praised the album in an essay on Joel titled "Every Dog Must Have His Every Day, Every Drunk Must Have His Drink" from his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (the title of the essay refers to a line from the Glass Houses song "Don't Ask Me Why").[16] In particular, Klosterman praised some of the more obscure tracks from the album including "All for Leyna", "I Don't Want to Be Alone", "Sleeping with the Television On" and "Close to the Borderline."[16]

In a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote: "It may not be punk – then again, it may be his concept of punk – but Glass Houses is the closest Joel ever got to a pure rock album."[1]

Track listing

All songs written by Billy Joel.

Side one
No. Title Length
1. "You May Be Right"   4:15
2. "Sometimes a Fantasy"   3:40
3. "Don't Ask Me Why"   2:59
4. "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me"   2:57
5. "All for Leyna"   4:15
Total length:
 18:06
Side two
No. Title Length
6. "I Don't Want to Be Alone"   3:57
7. "Sleeping with the Television On"   3:02
8. "C'était Toi (You Were the One)"   3:25
9. "Close to the Borderline"   3:47
10. "Through the Long Night"   2:43
Total length:
 16:54

Personnel

Musicians

Production

  • Phil Ramone – producer
  • Jim Boyer – engineer
  • Bradshaw Leigh – assistant engineer
  • Ted Jensen – mastering at Sterling Sound (New York, NY).
  • Brian Ruggles – technician
  • Steve Cohen – lighting
  • Jim Houghton – photography
  • Michele Slagter – production assistant
  • Jeff Schock – product management

Accolades

Grammy Awards

Year Recipient/Nominated work Award Result
1981 Glass Houses Best Rock Vocal Performance – Male[7] Won
Album of the Year[17] Nominated

American Music Awards

Year Recipient/Nominated work Award Result
1981 Glass Houses Favorite Pop/Rock Album[18] Won
Billy Joel (performer) Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist[18] Nominated

Charts

Certifications and sales

Region Certification Sales/shipments
Australia (ARIA)[44] Platinum 70,000
Canada (Music Canada)[45] 5× Platinum 740,000[46]
Hong Kong (IFPI Hong Kong)[47] Gold 10,000
Japan 317,000[48]
United Kingdom (BPI)[49] Gold 100,000
United States (RIAA)[50] 7× Platinum 7,000,000

*sales figures based on certification alone
^shipments figures based on certification alone
xunspecified figures based on certification alone

References

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  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs Scribner, 2004.
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  21. ↑ Library and Archives Canada. Archived December 30, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved November 1, 2011
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  34. ↑ * Zimbabwe. Kimberley, C. Zimbabwe: albums chart book. Harare: C. Kimberley, 2000
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  49. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Enter Glass Houses in the field Keywords. Select Title in the field Search by. Select album in the field By Format. Select Gold in the field By Award. Click Search
  50. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH
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