Billy Joel hasn't released an album of unreleased songs since 1993, the year of River of Dreams. It came out in 2001 Fantasies & Delusionsbut it was a solo piano album, 12 of his compositions performed by Hyung-ki Joo. And two years ago he released a single song, Turn the Lights Back On. He could have made other records. If he no longer released collections of unreleased songs it is because he did not want to “water down” his artistic legacy.
He told Rick Beato. After River of Dreams Joel had the feeling that an era had ended. «I was married, I had a daughter. I no longer wanted to lock myself in a cave and dedicate myself to writing as if I were a monk.”
And so, unlike many other artists who continue to release music well into their 80s (he is 77 today), Joel decided that the 12 records he had made were enough. «The Beatles also made 12 albums».
According to Joel, artists who continue to release albums after a certain age end up «diluting their artistic legacy. Maybe they aren't as good as they used to be, or they no longer have the same motivation, and in the end the level progressively drops. I didn't want to end up like that.”
«I didn't want to rage on something that had already exhausted its momentum», says Joel, who uses the expression “to beat a dead horse”, nor did he like the idea of being pushed just for the name. «What I did had to be valid and I realized that I no longer had the same motivation as I once did. So I said to myself: stop, don't ruin everything.”
