Billy Joel: ‘I Never Liked My Own Voice’

Lots of people like listening to Billy Joel sing, but not the Piano Man himself.

In a new interview with John Mayer on the guitarist's recently launched radio show How's Life, Joel spoke about consistently feeling let down by his own vocal abilities.

"I always wanted to sing like somebody else — I never liked my own voice," he said. "I would go in the studio and I'd do a recording and I'd come back in the control room and listen and go 'Oh God, it's that guy.' And I'd always be disappointed — no matter how good I thought the writing was, I never liked my own voice. Always wanted to sound like somebody else."

READ MORE: Top 20 Billy Joel Songs

One way he skirts around this, he says, is by trying to channel other singers he admires, including Ray Charles, Sting and Elvis Costello — "people with these wonderful voices," he explained.

Billy Joel, Songwriter Not Singer

This is not the first time Joel has opened up about not liking his voice. He ran into the issue most recently when recording his newest single, "Turn the Lights Back On," his first piece of original material in nearly two decades.

"Freddy [Wexler, the song's co-writer and producer] asked me, 'Are you thinking of somebody else when you're singing?' And I said, 'Always,'" Joel said to WBLM-FM earlier this year. "I'm always trying to sound like not Billy Joel, because I don't like my own voice. I like other singers. I'm a songwriter, because I can think about other people singing this stuff, not me."

Joel has just one more concert on the books for 2024, scheduled for Dec. 31 in Belmont, New York.

Not Ranked: 'Live Through the Years' (2019)

While this digital-only collection of spare live tracks released as B-sides and bonus tracks is interesting for completists, it doesn't hang enough together as a play-through experience to be considered a true Billy Joel concert album. It's also not complete, missing rarities like the live cuts from the 1976 promo album Souvenir.

11. 'Kohuept' (1987)

Billy Joel's historic run of shows in the Soviet Union, four years before its breakup, was plagued by his own vocal hoarseness and an infamous onstage freakout over the stage lights being used to confuse the audience. None of that comes through in this sterile-sounding release, which Joel has jokingly called Kaput.

10. 'Live at Shea Stadium: The Concert' (2011)

Despite the momentous occasion of these two shows at Shea Stadium in 2008 — the last to be performed before it was demolished to make way for Citi Field — the material from these sets feel a little too valedictory. Joel simply doesn't sound as engaged, relying on guests including John Mayer, Tony Bennett and Paul McCartney to keep up the energy.

9. '2000 Years: The Millennium Concert' (2000)

Though considerably edited from its original length and marking the first time on record that Joel had to sing hits in lower keys, this set that started in 1999 and ended in the new millennium provides pleasant versions of hits, plus some choice covers of Sly & the Family Stone and the Rolling Stones.

8. 'Live in the Studio - Sigma Studios 1972' (2010)

The earliest Billy Joel live disc was added to a deluxe reissue of Piano Man. It was included largely for its historical value: The rendition of "Captain Jack" featured here lit up request lines at Philadelphia's WMMR-FM, prompting Columbia Records to offer Joel a contract. It's also got a few songs that would never make any of Joel's albums.

7. 'Live at Carnegie Hall 1977' (2008)

Joel and his legendary '70s-'80s live band practiced, practiced, practiced and got this Manhattan gig a month before recording his breakthrough album The Stranger with producer Phil Ramone (whom Joel met that night). Highlights include early renditions of "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" and future hit "Just the Way You Are."

6. 'A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia' (2014)

As part of a documentary on Billy Joel's Soviet trip, Kohuept was brilliantly remixed and expanded into a much more interesting document of the trek to Leningrad. A deeper bench of hits and album cuts (including a great read on "The Longest Time") makes this worthwhile, as well as the fact that it's Joel's last shows with his classic band.

5. 'Live at the Great American Music Hall, 1975' (2021)

Initially included in a vinyl box set of Joel's early classic albums, this unique San Francisco set features gems like an early rendition of "New York State of Mind," played far less like a jazz standard, as well as some eyebrow-raising imitations of some of his contemporaries, from Elton John to Joe Cocker to Leon Russell.

4. 'Live at Yankee Stadium: June 22 & 23, 1990' (2022)

One of Billy Joel's strongest archival releases — tied to a restoration of a home video recorded at New York's other baseball stadium — is packed with renditions of hits fit for a venue that big. The set's guitarist, Tommy Byrnes, is still playing with Joel and serves as his musical director.

3. 'Live From Long Island' (2023)

At long last, Joel's second vinyl box featured the first audio release of this fan-favorite live video taped at Nassau Coliseum in 1982 — easily the definitive chronicle of a set with his classic band in its prime. Just about every major song of his that was on the radio (then or now) is performed brilliantly on this album.

2. '12 Gardens Live' (2006)

The first time Madison Square Garden put up a banner for Billy Joel was when he played a dozen consecutive sellouts there in the first half of 2006 — more than any other artist in one go. The resulting live discs capture the spark of those shows, plus a host of rarely-played songs that Joel dusted off for the occasion ("She's Right on Time," "The Night Is Still Young").

1. 'Songs in the Attic' (1981)

Billy Joel's first, best and most varied live album was built around a terrific theme, using versions of only deeper cuts he'd recorded before The Stranger made him a star. He was such a force on radio then that two singles — "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" and "She's Got a Way" — remain radio staples to this day.

Next: When Billy Joel Returned to His Youth on ‘An Innocent Man’