Billy Joel explains why hates the sound of his own voice
It takes a special kind of live performer to consistently play stadiums for several decades, as Billy Joel has done throughout his career. He has enough hits within his arsenal to please spectacular-sized crowds, but despite his monumental success, Joel has never been content with his skills as a vocalist.
Although Joel is a singer-songwriter, it’s always been the latter part of the job description that he takes more seriously. First and foremost, the New Yorker is a songwriter, with vocal duties standing as an unfortunate requirement he’d rather avoid. However, to fulfil his creative vision, Joel had no choice but to face his anxieties head-on and give it his best shot.
Admittedly, Joel isn’t a name often mentioned when people discuss their favourite singers of all time, but his ability to create beautiful melodies and lyrics more than compensates for his shortcomings in other departments. Moreover, during live shows, his crowds sing along at such a high octane that he likely can’t even hear his own voice.
As a workaround during the creative process, Joel imagines his songs are intended to be sung by one of his favourite artists rather than himself. While this is undeniably an unorthodox approach, it’s impossible to question the results which Joel successfully garnered from taking this route with his songwriting.
His track ‘Until The Night’, which appeared on his 1978 album 52nd Street, was penned with The Righteous Brothers’ Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield in mind. During an interview with Sirius XM in 2016, Joel revealed: “I’m not a stylist – not a big fan of my own voice, never have been. I’m a songwriter, which means I can imagine any voice doing something that I write.”
The musician continued: “I was actually trying to do Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield’s voice, the bass voice and the tenor voice, and combine them into this big, gigantic chorus. It’s almost Wagnerian – it’s just this big, operatic chorus that just beats you over the head.”
Meanwhile, during an interview with CNN in 2022, Joel brought up the topic once more. When asked about his song ‘New York State of Mind’ being a homage to Ray Charles, the singer-songwriter replied: “You are exactly right. I was thinking of Ray Charles when I wrote it. Although I wrote it in such a high key, I don’t know whether Ray would have been able to sing it.”
Joel then sang the track in his own voice before delivering an impression of how he believed Charles would have interpreted his creation. He added: “Well, a lot of the times, I’m thinking of somebody else other than me singing what I’m writing because I don’t like my own voice. I never did. I like to sound like somebody else, and I’m thinking of somebody else when I’m writing. I want to conjure up somebody else.”
Although, over the years, he’s become more accepting of his voice. While speaking with Howard Stern for an edition of SiriusXM Town Hall, he said, “I like [my voice] better now than I used to. I don’t think of myself as a singer.”
Joel might not rate his vocal skills, but fortunately enough for him, there are millions of fans across the planet who love the tones he’s capable of producing.
