Billy Joel is one of my favorite non-prog artists of all time. In all my years of listening I had never even thought of him as even close to prog at all, but a friend of mine made me realize that "The Entertainer," on "Street Life Serenade," is indeed very progressive. This begs the question, what other proggy songs does Billy Joel have?

He was in a band called Attila before going solo so I guess that album

He also did a classic album and everyone knows classical is progressive

David_D wrote: I guess, these "Prog Lounges" get less and less interesting for proggers.

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Attila - Wonder Woman - and if you wonder what that's got to do with Billy Joel, that's him looking like a long-lost member of Kiss in the centre of the album cover.  .............

AJ Junior wrote: sorry you feel this way. How can I improve my posts? Im newer to the forum.

You have nothing to worry about, don't sweat the snark.

I think his proggiest would be "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," but I'm no expert.

Edited by suitkees - March 03 2023 at 14:23

Hi, AJ. I have moved this from the Prog Music Lounge to General Music Discussions because this part of the forum is intended for music already included in our Prog categories at PA. It's a bit of a learning process where things best fit and even long-term members with many posts incorrectly place things. See Site Rules and Guidelines -> Creating new threads in the forum page CLICK Here I don't mind moving it at all, and only ever bothers me when people keep doing the same after being alerted to the guidelines. David has had a particular concern with Prog Archives turning into an All Music Site be because sometimes music acts not deemed as Prog gets mentioned in the Prog forums. While officially acts are not considered Prog until they are included in PA, of course many other acts flirted with and were dominantly Prog (how much can depend on the listener and ones personal definitions and parameters for Prog). Lots of big name and lesser-knowns artists made Proggy music, especially in the 70s, like Elton John with "Funeral for a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding" (which to me complements "Fool's Overture" by Supertramp nicely). And of course lots of what is included in PA also made music that is not Prog -- some describe artists/bands as Prog, whereas, I tend to think on the album and song level and describe music made by acts as Prog rather than the acts themselves. Some concentrated more on Prog than others, and some who concentrated more on Prog were more progressive than others. The Prog/Non-Prog dichotomy presented by some purists never made much sense to me. I think some bring in their preconceptions and aren't willing or able to fairly judge specific music and albums. I think of Prog as an amorphous quite nebulous thing. I think it generally better to focus on the topics of others that one likes (finds interesting/ entertaining and has something constructive and commonly positive to add) than to post in order to complain and/or push one's own agenda.

Back to Billy Joel, I don't have much to add as I have not been a fan of Billy Joel (haven't explored much) but I am really enjoying his "Scandinavian Skies" right now -- it's more than a place for Norwegian Blues (not for dead parrots pining for the fjords). I will be looking more into his music, so thanks for making this topic.

Edited by Logan - March 03 2023 at 15:44

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Attila - Wonder Woman - and if you wonder what that's got to do with Billy Joel, that's him looking like a long-lost member of Kiss in the centre of the album cover.

Wasn't Attila proposed as a band suggestion to PA at one time? Did it get rejected?