1989: Style
"Storm Front" (1989), by Billy Joel
Welcome to the 1989 project, where each month we’ll start with a Taylor Swift song from her 2014 album 1989 and leap from that to music that was released or charted in the year 1989.
This month’s connection is a little more straightforward than last month’s leap to Bobby McFerrin—this month, we’re talking about “Style”!
You got that long hair, slicked back, white T-shirt
And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
'Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style
“Style” by T.S.
I mentioned in December when I launched this Taylor Swift series that, “Compared to music I love deeply, the topics of the songs on 1989 can seem shallow to me or are overly concerned with appearances.” Ironically, this song has a layer of self-reflection to it that challenges the listener to consider whether the two people Swift is singing about are an example of “style over substance” or they are using their outward appearances and actions to communicate who they are. Unlike some of the other songs on 1989, the couple in “Style” are alone together, away from the corrupting influence of fame, and yet, they are still engaged in a game of testing what lies beneath their outward signals—testing which outward signals are only “style” and which are enduring.
Pop music always seems to be wrestling with this false dichotomy between style and substance. To be “art” you must be deep; but to be relevant, you must speak to what is on everyone’s mind. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of things that tend to be on everyone’s mind.
In 1989, Billy Joel was mounting a sort of comeback. His star had risen in the late 1970s with hits like “Piano Man” and his 1980 album Glass Houses spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard chart and yielded four Top 40 hits. But by the mid-1980s, his output had …slowed. He scored a couple of hits with two songs released with his Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, which fellow Substacker
describes as “execrable” in his “Worst of 1985.”His 1986 album The Bridge was not as successful as its predecessors, and his famous 1987 concert tour in Russia (resulting in the live album Концерт) had lost about $1 million. To top it off, Joel learned in 1989 that his long-time business manager (and former brother-in-law) had been stealing from him, ultimately settling a $2 million lawsuit.
Billy Joel needed a win, and he got a few with Storm Front. But compared to the depth of storytelling that can be found on his earlier albums, the songs feel more superficial—or at least seem to talk about outward signifiers in a way that may or may not imply depth.
Not that she's never done somethin' crazy or done somethin' wild
It's just that she's better at doing whatever suits her style
And that's not her style
“That’s Not Her Style” by B.J.
That song opens the album and paints a portrait of Joel’s second wife, super-model Christie Brinkley. The couple met on the set of a video shoot for one of his Innocent Man tracks in 1983. I had a friend who relished pointing out that Joel married Brinkley after divorcing the wife who had inspired the song lyrics, “I love you just the way you are” — but I don’t think that was an accurate or fair way to describe their relationship.
Judging by the tenor of this song, Joel had heard this kind of rumor and innuendo before and decided to respond to it. The gossip never ends.
The biggest hit from this album was “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” which was an undeniable phenomenon. The song was everywhere, including high school history curriculums, for years.
A couple of years ago, Fall Out Boy even did an updated version:
From my point of view, this was great, because I had already been listening to Billy Joel for several years at that point. His doo-wop hit “For the Longest Time” was always good to have on hand at Solo & Ensemble festivals, and he had already given me my springboard into jazz:
And even though I knew “We Didn’t Start the Fire” wasn’t a particularly inventive or creative song, it was nice to be caught up in something universally recognized as part of the pop zeitgeist.
For a brief moment, through Billy Joel’s new hit, I was “in style.” Sort of.
As much as I loved this album when it was new, I hear things in it differently now. The surface meaning of a song like “Leningrad” felt momentous 35 years ago because it came out as the Cold War was coming to an end. It was a novel thing for Americans to think of Russians as human beings with hearts and not a deadly, faceless threat. Now, it feels sentimental and begs the question of how well Viktor fared during the exploitive years of Boris Yeltsin, or the new authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin.
“Downeaster Alexa” felt stylistically fresh to 18-year-old me because I hadn’t heard laments from the sea before. And “When In Rome” felt fun because I was just discovering those Late Night shows that sounded like the glitzy showplace of Billy Joel’s New York—a place that keeps to the bright lights of Taylor Swift’s “Welcome…” and avoids talking about Lou Reed.
These songs aren’t bad songs (though Noah B. may disagree) but they don’t hold the power they used to hold. They feel less like they are telling stories and more like they are animating characters in costumes to play a role.
Perhaps he wears that long hair, slicked back, white T-shirt; and she has that good girl faith and a tight little skirt. You aren’t in it to learn anything deep—you’re in it to play that part and feel that feeling for a few minutes.