An Innocent Man

An Innocent Man is Joel's ninth studio album, a homage to the American pop of his adolescence in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Joel said he felt like a teenager all over again, that the material came easily and quickly, and that he wrote most of it in about six weeks. "Easy Money", written for a film of that name and influenced by James Brown and Wilson Pickett, kicked off the project. "Uptown Girl" was a homage to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and "The Longest Time" is a mostly a cappella doo-wop song. The cover was photographed on the steps of 142 Mercer Street in SoHo.

Seven songs were released as singles, including "Tell Her About It" (number 1), "Uptown Girl" (number 3, and number one in the UK, Australia and New Zealand) and "An Innocent Man" (number 10). Further hits were "The Longest Time" (number 14), "Keeping the Faith" (number 18) and "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" (number 27). The album stayed on the US chart for 111 weeks and was nominated for Album of the Year, which went to Michael Jackson's Thriller.

The Guardian's Stevie Chick traced the sources: Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons for "Uptown Girl", street corner doo-wop for "The Longest Time", Smokey Robinson for "Leave a Tender Moment Alone", and Motown for "Tell Her About It", while the title track drew on Ben E. King and the Drifters. He wrote that the album was unabashedly commercial and a last burst of pop brilliance.