UNREST’S MARK ROBINSON TACKLES BILLY JOEL'S DISCOGRAPHY (PART 7: Storm Front & River Of Dreams) (Ep. 239)

Discograffiti is the deep-dive podcast for music obsessives. In this episode, host Dave Gebroe talks with the epitome of DIY punk spirit (who can also write a pop hook like the best of ‘em), Unrest’s Mark Robinson, and together they discuss Billy Joel’s entire recorded output with commentary, stories, and star ratings for every release. Part 7 covers the era during which Billy catches his manager’s hand thrust deep in the cookie jar, Christie Brinkley divorces him, he stops writing pop music, dips his toe in classical waters, his drinking starts getting super scary, he gets married again, his third wife gives him a rehab ultimatum, he gets divorced a third time, and then gets married yet again. And he also manages to make and release Storm Front, River Of Dreams, and Fantasies And Delusions.

The goal for this and the previous episode was to make great art about bad art, to create two podcast episodes in inverse qualitative proportion to the rock bottom records being discussed. Mark and Dave accomplished their goal.

Here are just a few of the many things that Mark discusses with Discograffiti in this podcast:

• The crazed embezzlement fall-out with Billy’s manager Frank Weber;
• Why we have Sean Ono Lennon to thank for “We Didn’t Start The Fire”;
• Billy’s Shelter Island Sessions, which collapsed and then transformed into River Of Dreams;
• Billy’s swerve into the classical lane with Fantasies And Delusions;
• And an in-depth deep dive on every song off Storm Front and River Of Dreams.

Listen: linktr.ee/discograffiti

I support a wife and a six-year-old son with Discograffiti as my sole source of income.

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Either subscribe to Discograffiti’s Patreon at the Lieutenant or Major Tier, or just grab the episode as a one-off at the same link.

The Director’s Cut: Patreon.com/Discograffiti