Joel's seventh studio album, Glass Houses was released on March 12, 1980, by Columbia Records. It features Joel's first single to peak at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me". In 1981, Joel won a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for his work on Glass Houses. According to music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the album featured "a harder-edged sound" compared to Joel's other work, in response to the punk and new wave movements.

Opening with the sound of glass shattering, Glass Houses has more of a hard rock feel than Joel's previous albums. The cover shows Joel poised to throw a rock through the two-story window of his real-life waterfront glass house in Cove Neck. On some versions, the back cover shows Joel looking through the hole that the rock made in the glass.

TRACKLIST

You May Be Right
Sometimes A Fantasy
Don't Ask Me Why
It's Still Rock And Roll To Me
All For Leyana

I Don't Want To Be Alone
Sleeping With The Television On
C'était Toi (You Were The One)
Close To The Borderline
Through The Long Night