Album · Billy Joel
The Nylon Curtain by Billy Joel
The Nylon Curtain is an album by Billy Joel, released in 1982. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 33 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Allentown”, on 10 lists with a best position of #74.
The Nylon Curtain, Billy Joel's eighth album, came out on Columbia on September 23, 1982, and it's the Piano Man reaching for something bigger and darker than the hits. After Glass Houses had tried to prove he could rock, this time he wanted songs with more ambitious words and melodies, and Phil Ramone's production gives them room: layered, brooding and cinematic.
"Pressure" twitches and pounds with nervous synth energy, "Allentown" marches along with a clanging, hammering swing, and "Goodnight Saigon" builds slowly into a mournful singalong. It was also one of the first albums recorded, mixed and mastered digitally. It reached number seven on the Billboard albums chart and sold two million copies in the US, before An Innocent Man took him back to the doo-wop of his youth.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from The Nylon Curtain on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allentown | 10 | #74 | – | 1997–2026 | |
| 2 | Pressure | 10 | #172 | – | 1991–2026 | |
| 3 | Goodnight Saigon | 13 | #49 | – | 1987–2026 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.