Billy Joel — An Innocent Man

Vinyl, LP, Album, 1983

I’ll be honest. I’ve never listened to my copy of An Innocent Man. Not because I don’t like it, but because I don’t really care. It was only a dollar.

It was inexpensive, and so therefore, in my mind, it does not have any real value.

I got the four-disc Hamilton set for Father’s Day and I instantly threw it on the turntable. I buy a new record and I can’t wait to go home and listen to it. But I buy some random record at a rummage sale and I never listen to it, even if it’s actually something worth listening to.

Why do I do this?

Because that’s what we do — we assign worth based on cost. We assume that a website that costs more was made with better people, or better knowledge. We research products through filtering by price first — not because we think we’re on a budget, but because we assume certain price ranges equate to certain quality levels. We still fall under the wrong assumption that price is a finite field, that there is correlation, that there’s no such thing as supply, demand, bartering, or gouging.

I used to worry about money, and thankfully I don’t have to worry as much. Which means sometimes I spend too much on something that’s not worth it. And sometimes, a deal is a deal. Sometimes, you get a record for cheap because it was cheap, and that doesn’t change the fact that, despite its ubiquity in the early 80s and the Christie Brinkley worship songs and the ham-fisted nature of Billy Joel in general, “Innocent Man” is still a pretty great song, and “The Longest Time” is one of the best potential ska covers ever written.