So there I am, sitting with my eight-year-old cousin watching
\nthat Jennifer Garner movie
\n13 Going on 30<\/i>. The obligatory soul-searching scene comes
\nup, and I hear a voice start singing softly over a beautiful piano
\nintro. I’m thinking to myself, “Hey this is really good, who is
\nthis? Sounds familiar.” I ask my dad who it is, and he goes,
\n“That’s Billy Joel.”<\/p>\n
Joel has always been a part of my musical consciousness. Every
\nnow and then, I get the urge to pop in his greatest hits, and I
\nalways end up listening to it for about a week before moving on.
\nThis time around, I dug into my CD collection, and pulled out
\nThe Stranger<\/i>.<\/p>\n
It’s hard to imagine Joel making a better record than this. The
\nsongwriting is Joel’s usual brand of character specific tracks,
\nPhil Ramone’s production is smooth and tight, and the songs are
\nsome of his best ever. All that led to
\nThe Stranger<\/i> reaching number one, and becoming one of Joel’s
\nbest selling albums.<\/p>\n
Everyone knows the singles from this album like the back of
\ntheir hand; the romantic bonbon “Just The Way You Are,” the rocker
\n“Only The Good Die Young” or Joel’s anthem for Anthony, “Movin’
\nOut.” Those songs are classics, but they aren’t even the best
\ntracks on the album. The title track starts out sedately, but kicks
\nit into high gear shortly thereafter, and thus becomes the best
\nrocker on
\nThe Stranger<\/i>. “Vienna” the aforementioned song from
\n13 Going on 30<\/i>, has a very catchy refrain underneath a layer
\nof lush orchestral work. The stripped down “She’s Always A Woman”
\nstill manages to be heartfelt despite the lyrical nature of the
\nsong<\/p>\n
However the crown jewel of
\nThe Stranger<\/i> is “Scenes from Italian Restaurant.” This song
\nis Joel’s magnum opus, eight minutes of pure bliss. Split into
\nthree sections, each getting progressively better, Joel sings
\nmainly of Brenda and Eddie, two young kids who get married and
\ndivorced in a matter of months. The various shifts in tempo and
\nmood help the track gain momentum, and at the end, slow it back
\ndown to another brief glimpse of jazz, as Joel asks his love what
\ncolor wine she’d prefer.<\/p>\n
I have to highlight Joel’s outstanding lyrics on
\nThe Stranger<\/i>. One of the most appealing qualities to me
\nabout Joel’s work is how his characters and settings are fleshed
\nout. The feelings and emotions expressed on
\nThe Stranger<\/i> are those felt by regular people. My dad lived
\nin New York until he went off to college, and some of the places
\nJoel mentions throughout the albums he remembers. This album is
\npersonal to him because of that. Joel doesn’t eschew his roots, but
\ninstead embraces them, and I like and respect that.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake this is a pop\/rock album. This is not the
\nclassical sound of
\nFantasies And Delusions<\/i> or the somewhat experimental sound
\nof
\nGlass Houses<\/i>. That does not take anything away from
\nThe Stranger<\/i>. It is still one of the best albums in Joel’s
\ncatalogue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":26785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5760],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38058","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-billy-joel","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38058"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}