Billy Joel

Joel's final pop album bears his usual trademarks: acerbic lyrics, generic but effective rock moves, and a prominently featured piano. The doo-wop-flavored title track was a pop hit, and fans of Joel's particular craft will probably enjoy the rest. It isn't terrible -- it just isn't 52nd Street.

It's ironic that the angry young man of Turnstiles (1976) and The Stranger (1977), who
frantically ran from the middle-class clichés of his native Long Island, N.Y., should find
himself nearly 20 years later contemplating the meaning of life along the sandy shores of --
where else? - Long Island. Like rock & roll's own songwriting version of novelist John
Cheever, Billy Joel is torn by commonplace doubts about his place in the world.... More >