NYC Sounds of the Seventies

While the New York Dolls, then the Ramones, and then Blondie, Television, The Heartbreakers and The Talking Heads, were punkin' and rockin' my home town, a bunch of more mature singer-songwriters, were making pop, some critically reviled at the time, that has stood the test of time and in and perhaps by doing so, has removed the false stigma that was attached for a time to the singer-songwriters of the `70's. Here are three that were from New York, who made some great pop.

Paul Simon didn't really suffer any critical slings and arrows when he dumped Art Garfunkel for a dream of his own. On Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin' Simon and Still Crazy After All These Years, Simon made great, fun, witty and well-observed pop. Von Dropula would refer to this stuff as a creamy delight, were he to give it another listen. Songs like Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard, Mother and Child Reunion, Loves Me Like a Rock, Kodachrome, 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, and Still Crazy After All These Years have really stood the test of time, and like the other stuff I'll talk about, are a comfort food for the people of NYC.

Billy Joel was not immune from massive criticism, but has emerged in retrospect as Long Island's answer to Elton John. Joel wrote really singable, often Beatles, Spector or 4 Seasons-esque songs. Working with Paul Simon's producer Phil Ramone, Joel's stuff was always really nicely produced and featured a lot of the best session musicians in NYC. Billy had had a hit with Piano Man early then disappeared for awhile while he had managerial and other problems. But he started getting airplay again with songs like Captain Jack and The Entertainer and by 1975 he was ready to make a solid album which he did: Turnstiles, he followed that up in 1977 with The Stranger, and off he went to the races. Just the Way You Are was overplayed, but songs like The Angry Young Man, Say Goodbye to Hollywood, Miami, 2017, James, Movin' Out, Only the Good Die Young, and Scenes From an Italian Restaurant have rightfully gone on.

I think Carly Simon got a bad rap. First off, she was a stone cold fox. I'm serious, she was a really, really beautiful woman and her album covers were sort of events. There are surprisingly few `70's era pictures of her on the internet, which frankly sucks. Nonetheless, she was often critically picked on for her music: they'd say they didn't like her voice or they didn't like what she was singing about, and a few of them even tried to say she wasn't good looking (I was actually reading a bio of her on the net wher they had to toss in that "she isn't a classic beauty." I really wonder about some of the distinctions people will try to make)! Of course, critics had a problem when You're So Vain hit because no one could deny it was a transcendant and brilliant pop song. It also proved she had a rhyming dictionary a few years before Elvis Costello did (yacht/gavot!). Her stuff was generally produced by Richard Perry (both Perry and Carly get mentioned in Reunion's Life is a Rock But the Radio Rolled Me and dammit, that's cred right there!) who, along with Phil Ramone, is one of the great pop producers, and a lot of her songs were like soul tunes in the form they took.

Anyway, there was a sophisticated pop sound in NYC in the `70's and these three were a part of it. If you feel like giving it another listen, I'd be behind the move.