Billy Joel hailed Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo as the only two singers today who are "making new albums."
Speaking to Variety about today's artists, the 75-year-old hitmaker bowondered if other artists could still create new bodies of work.
"Who makes albums anymore anyway?" Joel said. "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."
Swift and Rodrigo have hit significant commercial success and critical acclaim in the past few years.
Rodrigo's Sour and Guts have both been praised positively by fans and critics since their release. The album also performed successfully in the charts, making Rodrigo the first artist in the 2020 decade to have her first two albums debut at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Aside from this, both of her albums were nominated for the Grammy Awards, with Sour winning the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album of 2022.
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Swift's most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, shattered streaming and chart records. The album has since earned the record of the second-biggest debut (by units) on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 2.61 million units.
The album's debut week marked the largest streaming week for an album ever, the second-largest week for an album, the third-largest sales week in the modern era, and the largest sales week for an album on vinyl in the modern era. The Tortured Poets Department claims the top spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, on track for its ninth consecutive week next week, completing a two-month stay atop.
As for Joel, he doesn't plan to release any albums in the coming months or probably in the foreseeable future. Speaking to the publication, Joel revealed that writing is "a form of torture" for him.
"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," Joel confessed. "It's a great deal of torment, and I decided I don't want to put myself through that anymore. I used to have drinking problems and all kinds of self-hate when I was writing, because I set the bar so high. It's not something I miss. I love making music."
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