I can't say I was ever a tremendous fan of Billy Joel. There was something too stiff, too in-your-face, too something about him that didn't do much for me in the late 1970s when my tastes in rock were solidified.

It didn't help matters that Rolling Stone magazine absolutely hated him. And for better or worse, their magazine, and their record guide books did much to shape my tastes in rock music.

So I'm judging Hank Bordowitz's new book, Billy Joel: The Life & Times Of An Angry Young Man on the merits of his writing and Joel's life story as a somewhat dispassionate critic. If you're a fan of Billy Joel, take what I say with a grain of salt: you'll no doubt enjoy this book.

A Life Made For VH1's "Behind The Music"

Joel's led a life that's tailor-made for a VH1 "Behind The Music" show, and indeed, he was featured in one of their early episodes. His life follows the show's stereotypical career arc: scrappy early days, suicide attempt, rise to fame, marriage to superstar fashion model, bad management, divorce from superstar model, more bad management, career recovery and an enduring level of stardom.

Joel's record career began during the early '70s' singer-songwriter craze, and like Bruce Springsteen, Joel was a rocker who fought hard to escape the granola-inflected days of John Denver and James Taylor. But during the late 1970s, Joel teamed with a great record producer, Phil Ramone, for a string of hit albums: The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, Songs in the Attic, and The Nylon Curtain. And like Springsteen, Joel was able to assemble to core of a great band sympathetic to his music.

All of which would take his fame to new heights--but, as Bordowitz's documents in perhaps his book's most memorable section, as he was enjoying his newfound stardom, Joel's life would radically change in the early 1980s. In short order, while riding his motorcycle through his home turf of Long Island, an automobile crashed into him. Shortly after, his wife, who was then managing his career, left him, partially due to stress of his career and her role in it.