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Best and Worst: Billy Joel Albums
I have strong opinions about Billy Joel’s music, so of course I had to take this opportunity to analyze it and determine his best and worst albums! I was going to do the top five songs and bottom five songs, but all the bottom ones would have come from the same album, so that doesn’t seem interesting. Then I was going to write about just the singles, but that would have taken more time than I had to weed through. So, I opted to go with the top and bottom albums instead. I’m going to tell you the top and bottom albums critically speaking, what I think are his best and worst albums, and then what my favorite and least favorite albums are. For the critical rankings, the criteria I am going to use are, first, peak chart position in the United States, followed (for the best album) by the number of countries in which the album was No. 1, since there are four albums that went to No. 1 in the U.S.
Here we go!
Best Billy Joel Album
Critical opinion: As I mentioned above, four Billy Joel albums went to No. 1 in the U.S.: “52nd Street,” “Glass Houses,” “Storm Front,” and “River of Dreams.” Of those four, only one also went to No. 1 in three other countries: “52nd Street” (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, if you’re interested). While I don’t think this album is the strongest, nor is it one of my favorites, it does have quite a few hits, notably “Honesty” and “My Life.” (“Stiletto” is probably my favorite track on the album, though.)
My opinion: Honestly, I think the best Billy Joel album has to be “The Stranger.” It’s such, such a strong album and has so many of his classic songs on it: “Movin’ Out,” “Just the Way You Are,” “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” “Only the Good Die Young,” “She’s Always a Woman” — not to mention the title track. If I were going to suggest an album for someone who has never heard Billy Joel’s music before, this is the one I’d pick. Sure, the last two tracks aren’t amazing, but the rest of the album more than makes up for that.
My favorite: The reason I am dividing this up is because what I objectively think is the best album is not my actual favorite album (although I do love “The Stranger”). It’s similar to the fact that I think “The Empire Strikes Back” is the best Star Wars movie, but “Return of the Jedi” is my favorite. (But that’s a whole other post.) Anyway, it was a difficult decision, but I suppose I would have to say that my favorite Billy Joel album is “Glass Houses.” Except for the last track (“Through the Long Night”), there’s not a song on it that I don’t love, and it’s just fun.
Worst Billy Joel Album
Critical opinion: Not surprisingly, the album that performed the worst on the charts was Billy Joel’s first album, “Cold Spring Harbor.” This is hardly fair, all things considered, but he was an unknown at the time, so it makes sense. I actually think this album is excellent, even stronger overall than his next installment, “Piano Man.” (Although, “Piano Man” does have bigger hits with its titular song and “Captain Jack.”) “Cold Spring Harbor” went to 158; the next worst-performing album (“Turnstiles”) reached 122.
My opinion: I am very outspoken about the fact that I think “Streetlife Serenade” is Billy Joel’s worst album. My understanding of this album is that he returned from tour and was told to write the whole album in about three months. The only interesting song on it is “The Entertainer.” It kind of makes sense that it would be his worst album because it was written when he lived in California and was heavily influenced by that fact. And if there’s one thing fans know about Billy Joel, it’s that he’s a New Yorker through and through. This album is also his only one with two instrument-only tracks.
My least favorite: You may not be surprised to hear this, but this time, what I consider the worst album and my least favorite are the same. I just do not like “Streetlife Serenade,” and except for “The Entertainer” and very occasionally “Streetlife Serenader,” I do not ever listen to the songs on this album. As mentioned already, I think the California influence on the album really hurt it, and it’s no surprise that his “back to New York” album (“Turnstiles”), which came next, was such a good one.
Published in Group Writing
My favorite Billy Joel song is only number 75 on that list: “Downeaster Alexa.” But maybe that’s because the video on YouTube is really great. There are some great old rugged fishermen in it, and it really captures the hard life fishermen live.
There’s another recording of it that he made with Itzhak Perlman. :-)
This is a great YouTube clip too, “The Top 5 Billy Joel Songs, Ranked by Billy Joel.” Just shut the sound off every time Colbert speaks. :-)
My favorite album of his is probably the live album Songs From The Attic. In addition to be a fine album with the definitive version of Summer Highland Falls on it [both the piano and the vocal on it are spectacular], along with I’ve Loved These Days. It amuses me now that this was his collection of “old” songs, and it came out in 1981.
Saw him in concert for the first time just a few years ago at (then) Miller Park, and was blown away. The guy puts on a hell of a show. My oldest son, then 12, told me a few months later that he wanted to see Billy Joel perform Piano Man live before he dies, so for Christmas 2019 I bought us tickets to see him at Notre Dame Stadium in June of 2020. Twice delayed, we’re hoping the concert comes off next June.
Yes. Yes.
I saw him at Wrigley Field in 2016. Amazing. I was expecting a diminished performance (age, venue), but oh no it was fantastic. Not once did I think -“Billy’s lost something” or “play the hits!”. He’s lost nothing and just about everything he could play was a hit. Good performer on top of everything else.
From reading up after the show, he and the band always do multiple covers during concerts. In our case they were “High Way To Hell”, “Take It Easy”, and “Rock & Roll”.
“The Stranger” (the song) is a fitting anthem for those of us who comment behind avatars (or a rugby ball in my case).
Well, don’t be afraid to try again. Everyone, even you, goes south every now and then.
BTW, “The Entertainer” is my ring tone.
I love Elton John’s music, as well, but am not nearly as familiar with it as I am Billy Joel’s. I do put them together in my mind, though, because they’re friends and I started listening to them at the same time.
I like River of Dreams, but it’s definitely super cynical. I keep thinking he was too young to be that cynical, since he was only around 44 when it came out.
I feel honored!
I’ve been blessed to see Billy Joel perform a couple of times in recent years, and he is still super talented and fun to watch. I would have loved to have seen him live in his younger days, but at least we have YouTube!
That’s definitely fair about The Nylon Curtain; you may need to be in the right mood for that one. And I agree with your comments on Cold Spring Harbor, for sure.
That’s fair! And River of Dreams is a great song, in my opinion.
That one was never my favorite, but I did like that he rerecorded “She’s Got a Way” when he released those.
I think it’s pretty clear that he had a background in classical music just from the way many of his songs have “sections” (there’s probably a more scholarly term to use, but oh well).
I actually like the “dated” sound of some of the music, but then again, I’m a big fan of New Wave music and the synthesizer, haha.
“Tower of Babel” is one of Elton John’s most interesting songs. It’s the 2nd track on the “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” album, released in 1975. The music alternates from a soft melody to a hard driving refrain. But the lyrics use biblical references to drive home a point:
That’s true! That’s why he ran off and became a lounge singer, so I guess without this error we might not have “Piano Man” at all. I found a copy of Cold Spring Harbor on vinyl once, and it is definitely interesting to listen to versus the corrected digital version.
Man, I was cynical at 16.
I would have guessed Billy was a Beatles fan – you can definitely hear their influence in his music sometimes.
He did redo “She’s Got a Way” on a Greatest Hits album! And the audio has since been fixed, so if you listen to it on Spotify or something, it sounds normal.
I’ll be honest, I knew about Attila, but I have never listened to them!
“Summer, Highland Falls” may be my very favorite Billy Joel song, after “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (that one just will always be my favorite, haha).
Fun song and fun video!
And So It Goes is one of my favorites. Thanks for reading!
I hope y’all get to see him! The song I love from Songs From the Attic is “Miami 2017.” I think it’s more fun than the studio version.
I got to see him at the opening of SunTrust Park in Atlanta, and you can definitely tell he’s a baseball fan!
It’s a great song!
Thanks for sharing – I haven’t listened to that one.
Same.
But the live version on “Songs in the Attic” is ten times better than the studio cut.
As are the live versions from that album of “She’s Got A Way” and “I’ve Loved These Days”.