This is an incomplete ranking as it doesn’t include any of Joel’s live albums nor does it feature his first three releases, Cold Spring Harbor (1971), Piano Man (1973) and Streetlife Serenade (1974) or his classical album, Fantasies and Delusions (2001). That still leaves nine studio albums, spanning the years 1977-1993.
I discovered Joel when a lot of people did, when he hit it big with The Stranger in 1977. The first album of his I owned (back when vinyl wasn’t cool, it was just the format every record store sold) was 1978’s 52nd Street, which went on to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. I loved what I heard and bought every album after until he retired from recording new music in 1993.
Billy Joel knows melody. He knows hooks. He knows how to write super-slick pop songs that can transcend that slickness to become something more. He also indulges himself regularly, a veritable Renaissance Man on some albums, shifting from Broadway-style show tunes to smoky ballads to jazzy riffs and effervescent pop. Sometimes it feels like he’s gleefully showing off and it works. Sometimes, less so. Here’s how I rank those nine albums, from best to worst.
First, let me say this is trickier than it seems because while I definitely think there are weaker albums in this mix, the better ones are fairly consistent, meaning the top five are almost interchangeable (while being quite different from each other, a nice trick).
- The Nylon Curtain (1982). After his divorce, Joel channels The Beatles and gets serious. He stretches out vocally and writes on weighty topics, covering the Vietnam war, the collapse of the industrial economy in the U.S. and more. It’s an album filled with anxiety and regret, of faint hopes and dashed dreams. It’s not exactly feel-good material. But at its best the music shimmers and soars and Joel moves from one style to another with purpose. The first half particularly stands out, with “Allentown”, “Pressure” and “Laura”–another one of Joel’s poison pen letters to a demanding, damaged and imaginary (I hope) lover.
- Glass Houses (1980). This is almost the literal opposite to The Nylon Curtain, a big arena-friendly album in which Joel tries to rock out. I say try because this is still pop, but it’s meatier than usual. There’s usually a little filler on every Joel album, but Glass Houses is incredibly tight, its scant 35 minute run time moving quickly from one song to the next. There are a few ballads here and they are lovely, but the album is driven by propulsive songs like “All for Leyna” and “Sometimes a Fantasy.”
- 52nd Street (1978). The first half is particularly strong, starting with the in-your-face “Big Shot” and ending with the jazzy tones of “Zanzibar.” The second half features some fine music, too, but the epic “Until the Night” is undercut by Joel’s lyrical weaknesses. His musings on women feel dated or old-fashioned if you’re feeling charitable.
- The Stranger (1977). In some ways this is a better album than 52nd Street but it’s hurt by having several weaker songs padding it out. Some might call it heresy but I have never liked the schmaltzy “Just the Way You Are” and the closer “Everybody Has a Dream” is probably the least memorable finale on Joel’s albums. On the plus side, the Broadway-style production of “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” is great fun and “The Stranger” is a perfect blend of music and lyric, right down to the creepy whistle that opens and closes the song.
- An Innocent Man (1983). A love letter to his then girlfriend Christie Brinkley, this throwback to the sound of the late 50s and early 60s is Joel at his most joyful and relaxed. The songs are like a bowl of candy, sweet little confections, from the rousing “Uptown Girl” to the somewhat preachy yet undeniably catchy “Tell Her About It.” My favorite is probably the wistful title track.
- Turnstiles (1976). There are a number of good songs on this album and I happen to find the cynical tone of “Angry Young Man” amusing specifically because of Joel’s delivery (which I think was deliberate) but a number of the tracks are also featured on the live “Songs in the Attic (1981) and they are more vital in their live versions, notably “Say Goodbye to Hollywood,” which benefits from the string section being excised and “Miami 2017” (whose doomsday vision of the future only has one year to become reality).
- River of Dreams (1993). His last pop album of new material and coming 22 years after his first, River of Dreams finds Joel angry in “The Great Wall of China” and “No Man’s Land” then showing a tender side as father in “Lullabye.” There’s more filler than usual here but as a send-off, it’s not bad at all.
- Stormfront (1989). I rank this lower than River of Dreams simply because more of the songs are less memorable and it’s rather dated now. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is catchy but superficial and “When in Rome” is one of my favorite Joel songs to skip. For some reason it just grates.
- The Bridge (1986). A number of songs here are quite catchy but the album is rife with affectations, mostly in Joel’s vocalizations. He performs a duet with Ray Charles and mimics Ray Charles. He adopts a falsetto in “Big Man on Mulberry Street” because he can and “Modern Woman” is a song I simply can’t stand. The whole album feels indulgent, further brought down by weaker tracks that surround the set pieces.
