Published on Aug 17, 2004
So there I am, sitting with my eight-year-old cousin watching
that Jennifer Garner movie
13 Going on 30. The obligatory soul-searching scene comes
up, and I hear a voice start singing softly over a beautiful piano
intro. I’m thinking to myself, “Hey this is really good, who is
this? Sounds familiar.” I ask my dad who it is, and he goes,
“That’s Billy Joel.”
Joel has always been a part of my musical consciousness. Every
now and then, I get the urge to pop in his greatest hits, and I
always end up listening to it for about a week before moving on.
This time around, I dug into my CD collection, and pulled out
The Stranger.
It’s hard to imagine Joel making a better record than this. The
songwriting is Joel’s usual brand of character specific tracks,
Phil Ramone’s production is smooth and tight, and the songs are
some of his best ever. All that led to
The Stranger reaching number one, and becoming one of Joel’s
best selling albums.
Everyone knows the singles from this album like the back of
their hand; the romantic bonbon “Just The Way You Are,” the rocker
“Only The Good Die Young” or Joel’s anthem for Anthony, “Movin’
Out.” Those songs are classics, but they aren’t even the best
tracks on the album. The title track starts out sedately, but kicks
it into high gear shortly thereafter, and thus becomes the best
rocker on
The Stranger. “Vienna” the aforementioned song from
13 Going on 30, has a very catchy refrain underneath a layer
of lush orchestral work. The stripped down “She’s Always A Woman”
still manages to be heartfelt despite the lyrical nature of the
song
However the crown jewel of
The Stranger is “Scenes from Italian Restaurant.” This song
is Joel’s magnum opus, eight minutes of pure bliss. Split into
three sections, each getting progressively better, Joel sings
mainly of Brenda and Eddie, two young kids who get married and
divorced in a matter of months. The various shifts in tempo and
mood help the track gain momentum, and at the end, slow it back
down to another brief glimpse of jazz, as Joel asks his love what
color wine she’d prefer.
I have to highlight Joel’s outstanding lyrics on
The Stranger. One of the most appealing qualities to me
about Joel’s work is how his characters and settings are fleshed
out. The feelings and emotions expressed on
The Stranger are those felt by regular people. My dad lived
in New York until he went off to college, and some of the places
Joel mentions throughout the albums he remembers. This album is
personal to him because of that. Joel doesn’t eschew his roots, but
instead embraces them, and I like and respect that.
Make no mistake this is a pop/rock album. This is not the
classical sound of
Fantasies And Delusions or the somewhat experimental sound
of
Glass Houses. That does not take anything away from
The Stranger. It is still one of the best albums in Joel’s
catalogue.