Billy Joel Uses AI For Nostalgic Video Clip

Billy Joel has shared the music video for his first new song in 17 years, Turn The Lights Back On – his first music video in decades.

The affecting clip sees Joel performing from different stages of his career, inspiring nostalgia and all sorts of emotions from his fans. He goes back in time to the Piano Man, Storm Front and River Of Dreams eras.

The video, simple in nature, shows Joel singing and playing his new song on the piano as he tracks different stages of his life and officially marks his comeback. You can watch the music video below.

For Turn The Lights Back On, Joel enlisted groundbreaking AI technology from Deep Voodoo – known for working with hip-hop heroes Kendrick Lamar and Juice WRLD – along with directors Warren Fu (Dua Lipa, Daft Punk) and Freddy Wexler (who co-wrote and produced the song).

Turn The Lights Back On has been a successful song for Joel, with the artist hitting the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time since 1997 and landing at #10 on the US Adult Contemporary Chart. It’s also found success on Japan’s Hot Overseas chart (#7), and in the UK – getting to #12 on the Singles Downloads chart and #4 on the Singles Sales chart.

Billy Joel celebrated his new song by performing at the Grammy Awards last month, appearing at the ceremony for the first time since 2002.

Turn The Lights Back On has been described as a “classic Billy Joel-style tune, embodying the hallmarks of his signature sound and ushering in the next chapter of his story,” per Rolling Stone.

It’s been a long time since we’ve heard new music from Billy Joel, with the American artist content with touring off the back of his already impressive catalogue. The last album related to Joel was 2001’s Fantasies & Delusions, which saw British Korean pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo playing classical tunes on the piano composed by Joel.

The only taste of new music following that release were Joel’s 2007 songs, All My Life and Christmas In Fallujah, with the latter starring Cass Dillon on lead vocals. Joel released his last traditional pop album, River Of Dreams, in 1993.