Billy Joel Offers a Blunt Response When Asked About a New Album

Don't expect a new album after the surprise release of Billy Joel's first new song in nearly 20 years. "Nope!" he bluntly answered, when asked about a larger studio project by Variety.

"Who makes albums anymore anyway?" he added. "I think the only person making new albums these days is Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo. I don't know other people who make albums. I don't know what the marketing of that is like now."

Part of that marketing effort might have been appearances at the Grammys and the national broadcast of a glitzy concert at Madison Square Garden. But then the New York show was controversially cut short. Worse, the snafu happened while Joel was performing his signature song, "Piano Man."

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"I wasn't surprised," Joel admitted. "I've never been really happy with the way music is presented on television. I think for TV people, it's really all about the visual. If you're looking at a television set, you'll see a big screen and a little tiny speaker and that should tell you enough about where their priorities are."

Why Billy Joel Says Songwriting Is 'Torture'

CBS quickly announced a re-airing of the concert in full, but the damage was already done. Joel busied himself with a co-headlining tour alongside Sting after his lengthy residency at the Garden came to a close.

His setlists included "Turn the Lights Back On," Joel's long-awaited new song. But despite its warm welcome, Joel still describes songwriting as a "form of torture."

Referring to his piano, Joel told Variety: "There's this big black beast with 88 teeth that wants to bite my fingers off while I'm writing. I drive myself nuts. It's just not as good as I want it to be. It's a great deal of torment, and I decided I don't want to put myself through that anymore."

The pressure led to "drinking problems and all kinds of self-hate when I was writing, because I set the bar so high," Joel added. "It's not something I miss."