Billy Joel teases first new music since 2007
Legendary singer-songwriter Billy Joel has teased his first new music since 2007, bringing his retirement to an end.
Notably, the last album Joel released was 2001’s Fantasies and Delusions, the only record in his back catalogue to be comprised of classic compositions. The instrumental release followed 1993’s River of Dreams, which featured the lead single of the same name and marks the final standard studio album in Joel’s repertoire.
Since Fantasies and Delusions arrived, the New Yorker has released a handful of covers on different collections. Still, his last original song arrived in 2007 as ‘Christmas in Fallujah’. Featuring his daughter, Alexa Ray’s ex-partner Cass Dillon, the proceeds from the track were donated to the nonprofit Homes for Our Troops, which built adapted homes for disabled American veterans returning from Iraq.
After seemingly an age of waiting, fans are hotly anticipating Joel’s new music. This feeling was prompted last month when the musician opened a TikTok account, with the first post a clip of him talking onstage about new material: “I have good news, I have bad news, I’ll give you the bad news first. We don’t have anything new to play for you. The good news is you don’t have to sit through something you have no idea what it is! Although … we got a little something we’re working on you might hear some time.”
Following the clip, this weekend, Joel’s Facebook header and Spotify Canvas on his top songs were replaced with artwork containing the phrase: “Did I wait too long…..”
2024 is set to be a busy period for the ‘Piano Man’. Later this year, he will wrap up his long-term residency at Madison Square Garden, a run that saw his daughters join him onstage at Christmas in a fitting way to conclude 2023. He will also be playing a handful of stadium dates with Stevie Nicks and Sting across the rest of the year.
Watch the TikTok clip below.
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