"Glass Houses" lives up to absolutely no preconceptions, expectations, generalities, or genres other than those Billy Joel himself has chosen to establish. There isn't one instance in which he's coasting, or repeating himself, or taking a second (easy) shot at a favorite subject or theme. This album is a continuation of the kind of work he began to show he was capable of with "The Stranger" and after that with … "52nd Street."… The ten songs here are uniquely Joel: sharp, immediate, often harshly funny vignettes about the way things are now with his characters, about their genuine emotional impulses, not their coy philosophizing or maudlin poeticizing about them….

Interestingly, a new, wryly charming facet of Joel's talent is beginning to move front and center here. It's Still Rock and Roll to Me is one example: it manages to be simultaneously satirical, endearing, and hilarious…. Sleeping with the Television...