By 1976, Billy Joel had finally come home. After attempting to make it out West and succeeding, he turned his back on the whole Hollywood culture and returned to New York. In a short span of time, Joel would reach unparalleled heights, but with Turnstiles<\/i> he wasn\u2019t there just yet.<\/p>\n
As is expected of a Joel album, there are at least two songs that stand at the top if his work. On Turnstiles<\/i>, they are \u201cSay Goodbye To Hollywood,\u201d and \u201cMiami 2017 (I\u2019ve Seen The Lights Go Down On Broadway).\u201d The former is a brilliant recreation of Phil Spector\u2019s \u201cWall of Sound\u201d approach, and a scathing look at the whole California scene that bands such as the Eagles would deride and encompass in the very same year.<\/p>\n
The latter has experienced a renaissance of sorts since 9\/11, describing the destruction of New York City in various ways. A science fiction piece, it contains one of Joel\u2019s most elegant piano lines and backing orchestration, with an incredibly hooky melody to boot. While not a full-fledged rocker, it contains more than enough energy to get one\u2019s toes tapping.<\/p>\n
Despite Turnstiles<\/i> only containing seven tracks, at times it seems to be dragging on, which is not good a thing for such a short album. Even the other big hit off this record, \u201cNew York State Of Mind,\u201d drags on much too long for what Joel wants to say. Now, the stately, emotive \u201cNew York\u2026\u201d does prove its worth to a degree; however, I can\u2019t say that for some of the other tracks.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll You Wanna Do Is Dance\u201d is essentially an earlier, inferior version of \u201cKeeping The Faith,\u201d and despite Joel\u2019s best efforts it never really establishes a groove. \u201cJames\u201d goes a wholly different route, settling on a soft and wimpy pop mood without a worthy melody.<\/p>\n
Mention must be made of the sleeper track, \u201cSummer Highland Falls.\u201d This track is pure brilliance, easily one of Joel\u2019s best ballads to date. Its flowing, effortless melody is thing of beauty, and Joel\u2019s vocals convey its delicate nature perfectly. Newcomer fans to Joel should definitely give this one a shot.<\/p>\n
Turnstiles<\/i> has its ups and it has its downs. However, it does set the stage for The Stranger<\/i>, Joel\u2019s big time break into the mainstream. So with that in mind, and considering the great tracks to be found on the record, it\u2019s worth at least a listen or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5760],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-40162","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-billy-joel","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40162","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=40162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40162"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}