Billy Joel – Storm Front

Billy Joel – Storm Front is the 1989 album that closed out Joel’s studio decade with one of his biggest late-career hits, We Didn’t Start the Fire. As his 11th studio album, it also marked a clear reset: Joel moved on from longtime producer Phil Ramone, kept only drummer Liberty DeVitto from his regular band, and brought in Mick Jones of Foreigner to produce.

That change matters to the sound. Storm Front leans harder into glossy late-80s pop-rock than much of Joel’s earlier catalog, but it also balances that scale with some of his more reflective writing. Alongside the rapid-fire history lesson of We Didn’t Start the Fire, there’s the working-waterfront storytelling of The Downeaster “Alexa” and the restrained, quietly bruised balladry of And So It Goes. The result is an album that shows Joel pushing toward a tougher, more contemporary studio feel without giving up his instinct for character and melody.

Its reputation often rests on the singles, but Storm Front is more revealing as a snapshot of transition: a major pop songwriter adjusting his sound at the end of the 1980s, while still writing songs with a distinctly New York sense of place and personality. This reissue also has a bit of context around it, having first reappeared as part of 2023’s The Vinyl Collection, Volume II before being broken out for an individual vinyl release.

Genre: Pop & Rock