Glass Houses

Glass Houses is the seventh studio album and the third Joel made with Ramone. The success of ballads like "Just the Way You Are", "She's Always a Woman" and "Honesty" had led some critics to call him a balladeer and soft rocker, and Joel found those labels unfair. He said the cover, which shows him about to throw a rock at a window of his Long Island glass house, was meant as a riposte to the image of a mellow balladeer. The record opens with the sound of glass shattering.

It spent six consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard 200. "You May Be Right" reached number 7, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" became his first number one single, "Don't Ask Me Why" reached number 19 and "Sometimes a Fantasy" number 36. It won the 1981 Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. It was the last studio album by the original Billy Joel Band of Joel, Cannata, Stegmeyer, Russell Javors and DeVitto, joined by lead guitarist David Brown.

Reviewers split. Paul Nelson of Rolling Stone wrote that Joel's material was catchy, but that so was the flu. Erlewine called it the closest Joel ever got to a pure rock album. Chuck Klosterman praised its less obvious tracks, among them "All for Leyna" and "Sleeping with the Television On".