Slight improvement over the previous album in that Billy Joel is back to his former self... The three beginning tracks rank up to one of his best works, it features good memorable sounds like the piano usage in "Allentown". It features agression in "Laura" and experimentation in "Pressure" which is an ode to the weight and what it can do to people. Listening to these three tracks put me in a New York State of Mind, made me feel like I was there; Billy Joel shows sheer talent; for those three tracks...
After those three tracks, it goes into slower, more introspective material that reminds me of other artists more than Billy Joel. He does do well on these songs though, providing pop songs ready for radio consumption; another thing, he does pull in a more consistent product that's less rocker and more pop than anything else... There's a consistent theme in "The Nylon Curtain" and that is stress, turmoil and hope... Billy Joel shines when he plays the piano and songwrites so and his songwriting and newfound consistency manages to make the album sound better.
Themes and consistency in music is what I like in these things. It sucks when songs are seperated from their albums and put into greatest hits albums and it also sucks when albums are mentioned as (a collection of singles). Granted, most music back in the day were singles but nowadays we have album planning, we have track placement, we even have themes. Thank Michael Jackson for the introduction of that because without the pop master we wouldn't have themes in "The Nylon Curtian". Well Billy Joel to an extent but he hasn't mastered the music video nor making a product with such a wall to wall sound.
Good things, it's short and 4 tracks are good enough for your listening pleasure; plus it's got a theme which is nice and it's got consistency which is also nice. If there's one thing Billy Joel will be known for, it'll be for themes like this. The actual music is something that many fans will debate on but for the times, we had this album and it was the rock-pop version of Thriller; though less groundbreaking and spectacular.
3/5