Ranking Billy Joel's Albums
A look at the Piano Man's studio catalog.
Welcome to this week’s issue of Michael’s Record Collection. I wanted to revisit the catalog of a classic artist this week in my writing, much like I often do when listening to music. With so many to choose from and no clear preference at the time, I let fate decide. When I heard a Billy Joel album broken down track by track on a podcast I heard this week, I figured Billy was as good a place to start as anywhere.
I have almost everything the Piano Man has released and can’t recall a time when I didn’t love his music. There are a few live albums and compilations I don’t have, and I never grabbed his classical compositions release, but my collection has every essential Billy Joel release. I consider most of his studio albums ‘essential’ but I even occasionally listen to the ones that aren’t.
When I sat down to write about Billy, I decided to put his catalog into some kind of order of greatness. That is kind of a fancy way of saying that I spent time listening to them and considering them, and then I ranked them.
I realize that ranking albums is a dumb and subjective enterprise. Everyone experiences music differently. People end up being especially drawn to their entry point to an artist they love, bonding with an album. Associating an album with a special time in our lives can make us look more fondly on it than we might otherwise. For example, most people find Boston’s self-titled debut to be the band’s best work. I prefer Don’t Look Back. It was the first Boston record — and one of the first rock records overall — that I owned. It was also one of the first records that I played to death. As such, it is an integral part of my musical roots.
So, these are my Billy Joel album rankings and they likely won’t reflect yours, dear reader. But I hope you will enjoy walking through his catalog with me and that this issue of Michael’s Record Collection will inspire you to give a spin to some of Billy’s albums that you haven’t heard in a while, or some you might never have heard.
My rankings are countdown style from least to most favorite and will encompass only Billy’s 12 studio albums in the pop/rock genre — all of his studio records except the aforementioned classical compositions release, Fantasies & Delusions. So, it’s comprised of the studio LPs from Cold Spring Harbor (1971) to River of Dreams (1993). That’s a 22-year run of incredible success.
Because my trip down the Billy Joel rabbit hole ended up being such a lengthy one, and the resulting essay became a bit daunting to read all in one go, I’ve split this column into two parts. The down side is that you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get my top six. But the bonus is that you get two issues this week.
Let’s get to it.
12. Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
Despite this being his first studio album, it was one of the last ones I heard from Billy’s catalog. I doubt I heard this album prior to the Napster explosion just after the turn of the century. Billy sings some of the songs with a weird vibrato reminiscent of Queen’s Freddie Mercury. However, Queen wouldn’t release its first album for two more years. The seeds of his later compositions are here, and his piano playing is excellent, obviously, but Billy had yet to find his true voice.
The biggest problem with Cold Spring Harbor is that the master tapes were transferred to vinyl at too high a speed, making Billy’s voice sound higher than it really is. There was a remastering attempt to correct the mistake in the early 1980s, but Joel still wasn’t happy with the way it sounded. The musicianship is good. Besides Joel’s piano, there is some great acoustic guitar on “Why Judy Why” and some nice orchestration on a few pieces.
Best tracks:
“She’s Got a Way” — An excellent ballad, but I like the live version from Songs in the Attic better.
“Everybody Loves You Now” — Billy flexes his piano muscles on this uptempo track, which is also better on Songs in the Attic.
“Nocturne” — A beautiful instrumental that shows Billy’s chops at classical-style composition.
Least Faves:
“You Can Make Me Free,” “Turn Around,” “You Look So Good to Me.”
11. River of Dreams (1993)
Four years after the excellent Storm Front, Joel released his final studio pop/rock record. Everyone remembers the annoyingly ubiquitous title track, which was seemingly playing on a continuous loop in every doctor’s office and grocery store, as well as on every radio station. Even when it wasn’t actually playing, it continued on a maddening loop in your brain.
There are some good songs on the album but it’s more inconsistent in quality than the rest of his later catalog. Along with Cold Spring Harbor, this is one I don’t find essential and is the only other Billy Joel release I never owned, although I occasionally listen to it on Spotify. I find Billy Joel music to be a lot like pizza — even when it isn’t great, it’s usually still pretty good.
Best tracks:
“No Man’s Land” — I’m not sure what he was going for with his unusual singing style on the verses, but this song works for me. I like the chorus and lyrically it’s an excellent lament about gentrification and suburban sprawl.
“All About Soul” — Atypical of a Billy Joel pop song, this one is six minutes long but doesn’t overstay its welcome. The song title is a good descriptor.
“Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)” — Again, the song title serves as a great description. A beautiful ballad for his (at the time) little girl and a positive message about what happens when we’re gone. The misspelling of lullaby was intentional and ties into the song’s lyrics.
Least Faves:
“A Minor Variation,” “Shades of Grey,” “Two Thousand Years.”
10. Piano Man (1973)
Some people will vehemently disagree with my low placement of Billy’s first “classic” album, but it’s not as if I don’t like it. I simply like others more and I find Piano Man to have high peaks with its anchor songs but is otherwise a bit uneven.
I came to this album later than much of his mid-career catalog. I’d heard the title track pretty early on, although I can’t recall quite when. It was just one of those songs that came on the radio from time to time and I liked it but never fell as much in love with it as others seemed to. I didn’t hear “Captain Jack” until much later and was in my 20s before I heard the rest of the album. This album has my least favorite opening track in Billy’s catalog. The opener on The Bridge also falls a bit flat for me but I just plain hate “Travelin’ Prayer,” which is not something I can say about many Billy Joel songs.
Best Tracks:
“Piano Man” — Sure, it’s been played to death, and still gets played far too often, but it’s a classic. The piano, the harmonica, and Billy’s colorful lyrics — about his time as a working musician in L.A. bars — all come together nicely. I will never not enjoy the lyric, “He’s talking with Davey, who’s still in the Navy.”
“Captain Jack” — At over seven minutes, this track cemented Billy’s reputation as an excellent storyteller. Joel sings about affluent white suburban kids he observed turning to heroin — “losers” as he saw them. The song is a bit vulgar, as he sings about a character who picks his nose, masturbates, and does drugs. At times, the lyrics are a bit cringeworthy but it’s intentional. Overall, a great song.
“The Ballad of Billy the Kid” — Despite being filled with historical inaccuracies, Billy’s bombastic narrative song, full of dramatic piano pyrotechnics, is one of the album’s highlights.
Least Faves:
“Travelin’ Prayer,” “Ain’t No Crime,” “Worse Comes to Worst.”
9. Streetlife Serenade (1974)
This is one of the last Billy Joel albums I added to my collection. That’s mainly because it lacks well-known hits, so I never made it a priority. As a result of not having owned it as long, I have likely played this about half as often as Piano Man, the next least played. I’ll cop to not even remembering how some of these songs went when I initially started going through his catalog as I wrote this issue of the newsletter.
As with all his records, there’s plenty to like here, but as is the case with his early albums, it suffers from being a bit uneven in quality. In the end, I found I liked it a bit more than Piano Man.
Best Tracks:
“Streetlife Serenader” — A classic Billy singer/songwriter track with that huge piano sound. Ron Tutt does some nice drum work on this song as well.
“Los Angelenos” — This is a rocking track with a good groove behind Billy singing about people in Los Angeles not actually being from there. Having lived in Florida since 1999, I can kind of relate to meeting so many people who all seem to be from somewhere else.
“The Entertainer” — I like the keyboard sounds on this song, even though by today’s standards they sound a bit dated.
Least Faves:
“Root Beer Rag,” “Weekend Song,” “The Mexican Connection.”
8. The Bridge (1986)
I’ve actually got to replace this one in my collection. I own it, but I have no idea where it is. I have a vague recollection of loaning it to someone but never getting it back. If you have my copy, please return it when you have a chance. This one belongs on my shelf.
Like most of Billy’s output from 52nd Street on, I got this shortly after its release. The songs that don’t measure up on this album are more forgettable than bad. Interestingly, Billy does a song in the style of the Police on “Running on Ice,” and he curiously chose it as the album opener. It has an energy about it, so from that standpoint it makes sense, but it doesn’t offer a representative sample of what lies ahead. There is also a song done in the style of Huey Lewis & the News (“Modern Woman”), a duet with Ray Charles, and another that features Cyndi Lauper on backing vocals. On second thought, maybe “Running on Ice” is a perfect opener, telling the listener to expect the unexpected.
The Bridge has a strong first half but then simply doesn’t maintain that early momentum through the album’s back half. Again, not an album I hate or even dislike. I like it quite a bit, but…hey, some of these must fall to the bottom of the list by default due to the ones still to come.
Best Tracks:
“A Matter of Trust” — One of the best count-ins ever put on a record leads into one of Billy’s rare guitar-driven, rocking numbers.
“This is the Time” — The chorus makes this song for me and I love the lyric “these are the days to hold onto, ‘cause we won’t although we’ll want to.” That’s the perfect description of how many of us go through time — wanting to savor all of the great moments and remember them when things get rough, but often failing to do so.
“Baby Grand” — It must have been an incredible thrill for Joel to work with the legendary Ray Charles on this song. A bluesy tribute to songs like “Georgia On My Mind,” this track serves as a tremendous love letter to a musical instrument that served both musicians well over the years, as well as a wonderful homage to Charles.
Least Faves:
“Big Man on Mulberry Street,” “Getting Closer,” “Code of Silence.” — This is the point where it starts getting more difficult to select “least faves” from each album and the final time I can pick out three that I sometimes skip.
7. Storm Front (1989)
Most of this album was on the radio at one point or another. One of the songs (“Shameless”) even became a huge country hit for Garth Brooks. I prefer Billy’s version but at least I can tolerate the countrified version if need be.
This album dropped while I was in college and trying to figure out who I was (I’m somehow still working on that). For a lot of that period, I wasn’t in the best mental place, and music is what keeps me from circling the drain. Storm Front got a lot of play on my stereo at that time. From the opening rocker “That’s Not Her Style” to closing ballad “And So It Goes,” the album has a little of everything, even if most people got sick of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” at the end of the 1980s.
Best Tracks:
“Leningrad” — This is a terrific story song. As someone who grew up during the Cold War and saw its end, there’s a lot in here that hits home emotionally. It’s almost a sequel to Sting’s “Russians,” written four years earlier.
“The Downeaster Alexa” —Joel once again captured the plight of the everyman. Just as he synthesized the human element of Marines who served in Vietnam in 1982’s “Goodnight Saigon,” he nailed the plight of the struggling fishermen of the Long Island area here. It’s emotional and it’s also just a great song.
“I Go to Extremes” — This upbeat number features excellent piano work from Joel, a driving beat, and excellent lyrics that I related to at the time:
Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?
Least Fave:
“Storm Front” — This is the first album on the list where I don’t actually dislike any of the songs on the record. I never skip any of them when listening and this just happens to be the least favorite of a collection loaded with good songs.
And thats’s it for Part 1. Barring something unforeseen, Part 2 will drop tomorrow. It’s just undergoing a final round of edits, so it’s mostly a matter of formatting and scheduling it. I hope your favorite Billy Joel album is still yet to come in my rankings, but if it was one of the ones above, that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. Feel free to write to me and let me know why I should have moved it up. Or let me know why you think your choices for “best tracks” are better than the ones presented above. I’d love to get your feedback on Billy’s music.
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