Although it's missing a few important (not to mention big) hits, Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2 (1973-1985) [Bonus CD-ROM Track] is an excellent retrospective of the first half of Billy Joel's career. Beginning with "Piano Man," the first disc runs through a number of early songs before arriving at the hit-making days of the late '70s; some of these ...
Released in conjunction with Billy Joel's grand experiment with classical music, The Essential Billy Joel was a welcome reminder of Billy Joel's way with a pop song, improving on the previous Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 & 2 by extending into the '90s and delving deeper into his catalog. There were some casualties along the way -- it's easy for a fan to ...
Perhaps it was inevitable that Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 would pale next to its double-disc predecessor. Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2 covered nine albums (it ignored Cold Spring Harbor), a period during which Joel had 26 Top 100 hits. If it had picked up where the first collection left off, Vol. 3 would have covered three studio albums, ...
Once The Stranger became a hit, Billy Joel quickly re-entered the studio with producer Phil Ramone to record the follow-up, 52nd Street. Instead of breaking from the sound of The Stranger, Joel chose to expand it, making it more sophisticated and somewhat jazzy. Often, his moves sounded as if they were responses to Steely Dan -- indeed, his ...
To promote his 2005 box set My Lives, Billy Joel held a series of concerts at Madison Square Garden at the end of the year -- highlights of which are collected on the 32-track, two-CD set 12 Gardens Live. If 2000's double-live 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert seemed bloated and aimless, the work of an old pro going through the motions, 12 ...
The back-to-back success of The Stranger and 52nd Street may have brought Billy Joel fame and fortune, even a certain amount of self-satisfaction, but it didn't bring him critical respect, and it didn't dull his anger. If anything, being classified as a mainstream rocker -- a soft rocker -- infuriated him, especially since a generation of punks ...
Although it's missing a few important (not to mention big) hits, Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2 is an excellent retrospective of the first half of Billy Joel's career. Beginning with "Piano Man," the first disc runs through a number of early songs before arriving at the hit-making days of the late '70s; some of these songs, including "Captain Jack" ...
Billy Joel's four-disc The Complete Hits Collection 1973-1997: Limited Edition reissues his three Greatest Hits collections and adds a live rarities collection previously released in a limited-edition Australian box set to commemorate the River of Dreams tour. The songs on Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2 have been restored to their album length and ...
The CD companion to the America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon, this double-disc set features all of the musical performances aired on the show, including Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "I Won't Back Down," Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind," and Paul Simon's "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Disc one features earnest, rousing performances like ...
Embittered by legal disputes with his label and an endless tour to support a debut that was dead in the water, Billy Joel hunkered down in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, spending six months as a lounge singer at a club. He didn't abandon his dreams -- he continued to write songs, including "Piano Man," a fictionalized account of his weeks as ...
Riding high on the blockbuster An Innocent Man and with a new jet-setting bride at his side, Billy Joel took full advantage of the high life, as is clear from The Bridge, an album that unwittingly celebrates the excesses of the Reagan years. While he hasn't quite settled into middle age, Joel is ready to take advantage of his wealth and status, ...
A few short months after abandoning the heavy organ-and-drums duo Attila -- partially because their sole record flopped, partially because he stole the drummer's wife -- Billy Joel reinvented himself as a sensitive singer/songwriter. He had shown signs of McCartney-esque songcraft on Hour of the Wolf, the last Hassles album, but his debut album, ...
Billy Joel teamed with Phil Ramone, a famed engineer who had just scored his first producing hits with Art Garfunkel's Breakaway and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years for The Stranger, his follow-up to Turnstiles. Joel still favored big, sweeping melodies, but Ramone convinced him to streamline his arrangements and clean up the ...
Having scored three multi-platinum hits in a row, Billy Joel took a breather, releasing his first live album, Songs in the Attic, as he worked on his ambitious follow-up to Glass Houses. Joel wisely decided to use the live album as an opportunity to draw attention to songs from his first four albums. Apart from "Piano Man," none of those songs had ...
Grammy's Greatest Moments, Vol. 2 gathers more live performances from the awards-show telecast; while there isn't much rhyme or reason as to which songs were selected here, or what years they were taken from, the common thread of high performance quality helps tie the collection together. The concentration tends to be on the '80s and '90s, and on ...
There's a reason Turnstiles begins with the Spector-esque epic "Say Goodbye to Hollywood." Shortly after Streetlife Serenade, Joel ditched California -- and, by implication, sensitive Californian soft rock from sensitive singer/songwriters -- for his hometown of New York. "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" was a celebration of his move, a repudiation of ...
It was pretty clear that Billy Joel had run out of steam by 1993's River of Dreams. He had shown signs of wearing on its predecessor, Storm Front, but his trademark melodic gift disappeared on River of Dreams and his words, even performances, were bone-tired -- he even called the last song "The Last Song (No More Words)." So, it was no great ...
Joel has reached middle age and he is still restless and angry. Fortunately, this results in some fine, adventurous music, making River of Dreams his strongest effort since The Nylon Curtain. Joel explores all of his favorite musical territory on this album, reaching back to doo wop, moving through Beatlesque pop, toward his trademark balladry. ~ ...
Recording The Nylon Curtain exhausted Billy Joel, and even though it had a pair of major hits, it didn't rival its predecessors in terms of sales. Since he labored so hard at the record, he decided it was time for a break -- it was time to record an album just for fun. And that's how his homage to pre-Beatles pop, An Innocent Man, was conceived: ...
Extending a mean streak he'd already revealed more than once, Joel looks upon the star-making machinery that broke him the year before and scorns it. But he has such a gift for the putdown, notably in "Los Angelenos" and "The Entertainer," and the melodies are so good that you can't help singing along and agreeing with him. If you didn't already, ...
"People who just know Billy Joel from Top 40 singles may not like Billy Joel, and I can't say I necessarily blame them. I don't think that really represents the sum and substance of my work." So says Joel in the liner notes to My Lives, a comprehensive four-CD/one-DVD box set that uses rarities, B-sides, soundtrack contributions, demos, album ...
Embittered by legal disputes with his label and an endless tour to support a debut that was dead in the water, Billy Joel hunkered down in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, spending six months as a lounge singer at a club. He didn't abandon his dreams -- he continued to write songs, including "Piano Man," a fictionalized account of his weeks as ...
Now, here's an album title to conjure with! What could The All Time Greatest Movie Songs be? Let's see, if we go by the most popular songs ever heard in the movies, we'd be talking about "White Christmas," "I Will Always Love You," "The Third Man Theme," "Cheek to Cheek," and "Buttons and Bows," to cite the longest running number one hits. Are any ...
Since Joel's concerts largely reproduce his studio recordings, and since he already has a greatest hits album out, a live record is inessential. The cachet of recording it in the old Soviet Union doesn't last over the years, and while the performances are fine, only completists need this record. Joel fans must have realized this, since the album ...
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