Uptown squirrel’s looking for a downtown man…
Need a little ear caffeine to get your week started? The best part of waking up is finding out it’s Monday! Because that’s the day we sift through the grounds to percolate another lost hit that got thrown out with the filter from that giant Mr. Coffee machine of vintage tunes we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy assures you that this song is good ’til the last drop of the needle, while the Sponkies make a set of drums out of old coffee cans. This week’s DVA was hand picked by Juan Valdez…
In almost eight years of providing a variety of different kinds of music on Mondays, you’d think I’ve represented just about every big artist by now…. especially those who were still going strong in the 80’s. But that isn’t the case. One of America’s biggest hitmakers of my lifetime still hasn’t seen any of his music played on The Nest….
You act like that’s a bad thing….
William Martin Joel became everyone’s favorite piano man in the 70’s, and built a lengthy career out of being a musical chameleon who could successfully pull of multiple styles writing songs about all of the supermodels he dated and how the entertainment business that put him in that position was such a sham. Billy Joel had so many hits in the last quarter of the 20th century that more than a handful have gotten lost in the shuffle of his more iconic songs. And naturally, my favorite lost hit of Joel’s is one that comes off what may be his least favorite album he ever did…
“Modern Woman” was the first single from Joel’s 1986 album The Bridge, which spawned only two hits… this one and “A Matter of Trust,” which both peaked at #10. “Modern Woman” is one of those very rare 80’s hits that didn’t even have an official music video… with most of its promotion coming from its appearance in the soundtrack for Ruthless People.
I can’t think of Danny DeVito without Trisha’s comment that she reads Snuggle Bear’s SCT lines in his voice!
“Modern Woman” is a big fave of mine because, to me at least, it’s probably Billy Joel’s most 80’s sounding song… with those sharp keyboard stabs, great sax work, and an epic bass groove. When I composed my original list of potential songs for use in the DVA at the beginning of 2016, “Modern Woman” was the 15th song I wrote down… why I waited (whoa oh oh) for the longest time to use it, I don’t know.
Too much PRESSURE!
Be sure to return next Monday for another DVA lost hit that goes to extremes…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
he knows a lot about that topic… I’m sure ;O)))
Yeah, and all those modern woman divorce settlements…
He really did have so many hits that somehow I managed NOT to have heard this before – or maybe I just forgot it if I heard it. It’s a little “manic” in tempo but then that was the 80’s for ya!
Pam
I think the only reason I remember it is the ads for the Working Woman’s Survival Show that would come to town every year… it was the theme song for the commercials. I don’t remember it on the radio either, and obviously not from MTV since it had no video!
Such awesome sax riffs in this tune which I never recall being played on my local station.
I’d swear it wasn’t played here either… maybe they were tired of playing Billy Joel by then.
Ohhhh I like that one. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it. I love Glass Houses, The Stranger, and 52nd Street. I can sing every song on all three albums (with correct lyrics and extremely loud when needed) but kind of stopped listening to any of his new stuff after that. But hey, I have a new song now. Thanks ES.
I didn’t learn those songs until I started listening to 70’s music when grunge and rap chased me away from 90’s music. Tell Her About It and Uptown Girl were my first two Billy Joel songs I remember, and I love almost all his 80’s stuff…. except We Didn’t Start The Fire which is an overplayed mess!
I may have heard that before, but I would describe it as “messy and instantly forgettable”.
Hey, at last we’re back to me disliking your music choices! I was beginning to worry there for a while…
At least I am doing something right!