Recording The Nylon Curtain exhausted Billy Joel, and even though it had a pair of major hits, it didn't rival its predecessors in terms of sales. Since he labored so hard at the record, he decided it was time for a break -- it was time to record an album just for fun. And that's how his homage to pre-Beatles pop, An Innocent Man, was conceived: it was designed as a breezy romp through the music of his childhood. Joel's grasp on history isn't remarkably astute -- the opener "Easy Money" is a slice of Stax/Volt pop-soul, via the Blues Brothers (quite possibly the inspiration for the album), and the label didn't break the pop charts until well after the British Invasion -- but he's in top form as a craftsman throughout the record. Only once does he stumble on his own ambition ("This Night," which appropriates its chorus from Beethoven). For the rest of the record, he's effortlessly spinning out infectious, memorable melodies in a variety of styles, from the Four Seasons send-up "Uptown Girl" and the soulful "Tell Her About It" to a pair of doo wop tributes, "The Longest Time" and "Careless Talk." Joel has rarely sounded so carefree either in performance or writing, possibly due to "Christie Lee" Brinkley, a supermodel who became his new love prior to An Innocent Man. He can't stop writing about her throughout the album -- only three songs, including the haunted title track, aren't about her in some form or fashion. That giddiness is infectious, helping make An Innocent Man an innocent delight that unwittingly closes Joel's classic period.

Tracks

01. Easy Money [0:04:05.52]
02. An Innocent Man [0:05:18.30]
03. The Longest Time [0:03:37.58]
04. This Night [0:04:18.05]
05. Tell Her About It [0:03:51.05]
06. Uptown Girl [0:03:17.22]
07. Careless Talk [0:03:47.15]
08. Christie Lee [0:03:30.08]
09. Leave A Tender Moment Alone [0:03:56.30]
10. Keeping The Faith [0:04:42.00]

EAC extraction logfile from 26. October 2006, 20:31 for CD
Billy Joel / An Innocent Man

Used drive  : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GSA-4163B   Adapter: 1  ID: 0
Read mode   : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Combined read/write offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : C:\Programas varios\EAC095_PREBETA_4\Mac\MAC.exe   (Monkey's Audio Lossless Encoder)
                     High Lossless Compression

Other options      : 
    Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
    Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
    Installed external ASPI interface


Range status and errors
Selected range
     Filename G:\DISCOS COMPARTIDOS ESHOCK\Billy Joel - An Innocent Man\CDImage.wav

     Peak level 100.0 %
     Range quality 100.0 %
     CRC 850DD0D0
     Copy OK

No errors occured

End of status report