Earth Crisis

By Crispin Sartwell

Today in America, we face an unprecedented crisis. It is a political crisis, an artistic crisis, a crisis of the spirit.

I refer of course to the current Elton John/Billy Joel tour of the eastern seaboard.

Joel and John have four first names between them but only one style of music, in part because Joel came along after John and kind of copped his schtick.

And they have nothing whatever to do with rock 'n' roll. What they are is hideously bloated lounge singers, "piano men" elevated arbitrarily to the status of icons. Really, they ought to be playing the Holiday Inn for tips.

You can judge a culture by its entertainments. For the ancient Romans, it was watching Christians devoured by lions. A bit reprehensible perhaps, but an elemental drama of life and death. The Elizabethans were partial to Shakespeare and bear baiting. Nineteenth century Germans seemed able to listen to Wagner. But we appear to be slavishly devoted to gutless schlock. That is not progress.

Elton John burst onto the scene in a spectacle of big sunglasses, sequined capes, and really big shoes, like a Liberace of the void. Indeed, big sunglasses were perhaps Elton's greatest, most enduring artistic achievement, a pivotal moment in the history of pointlessness.

Lost in the outfits was the fact that the music sucked. Elton managed to bellow and squeak simultaneously, interpreting the claptrap of Bernie Taupin's lyrics over melodies as riveting as white noise.

Piano man he makes his stand
In the auditorium
Looking on she sings the songs
The words she knows, the tune she hums

But oh how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you and you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today

Calling this bilge would be doing it a kindness.

Let us now briefly ponder the career of Billy Joel. He went from songs like "Piano Man" - at once profoundly self-aggrandizing and deeply unlistenable - to flirtations with rock such as "Uptown Girl." Along the way there were many adventures in drivel, as Joel listlessly simulated various styles of music.

Billy Joel is to his contemporaries the Ramones, for example, what Judith Krantz is to John Milton. And indeed, one would have thought by the time the punks were rebelling against the heavy makeup, the infinite sequins, and the artistic piffle of the mid-seventies, John and Joel would have gone the way of the pet rock.

But it is an axiom in pop music that your career is never over, and as John and Joel play for the nth time music that was gutless, tedious, and meaningless in the first place, you begin to wonder how they and American culture survive. Think, as you plop down your money, that you could be striking a blow for something over nothing. You could be listening to hardcore punk, the blues, hip hop, Alan Jackson, Shostakovich, Joshua Redman: for God's sake anything.

One thing you could say for lounge music is that it's harmless. But too much harmlessness is harmful, and when harmlessness becomes your aesthetic you've simply given up: your life is an abject defeat. Save your money for the next Eminem album.

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