Billy Joel's late-Seventies records have revealed a songwriter with a fair amount of wit, a tough, unsentimental view of generational and class concerns…. [It] should be obvious that, compared with his commercial competition—the Styxs, REO Speedwagons, and Journeys that glut our airwaves and pretty much define mainstream above-ground rock—the guy comes off as a genius. Or at least an honest, respectable craftsman.

That said, Joel's new … album, "The Nylon Curtain," feels like something of a throwback to his earlier, dismissable work. (The songs that made his initial reputation—Piano Man and the like—seem overheated and faintly embarrassing now.) The admirable Long Island bar-band rocker who had emerged in his recent work is strangely muted here, as is the social diarist, and in their place at times seems to be just another cabaret artist. The songs, when they're not weighted down with shameless and inexplicable references...