Vinyl Of The Week
Billy Joel
*Piano Man*
The second album by future legend Billy Joel.
Origins of the album:
This version of Billy Joel’s Piano Man is out of my very own mother’s personal collection. She had it stored away for decades, and when I started collecting vinyl last year, she gave it to me as a Christmas gift.
To receive a vinyl will always make me happy. I am a cornball, so when I get a vinyl, I may or may not say, “It’s been a record day.”
To receive one that has been around since 1973 from someone you love is priceless, or whatever that Mastercard commercial was, don’t be weird.
The record still plays perfectly. With respect to current pressings, there is a noticeable quality difference in the older vinyl records VS the newer.
The Review:
Love it or hate it, if you have ears, you cannot escape from the song “Piano Man.” I am personally a big fan of Billy Joel. Being from NY, it was hard not to.
*Piano Man* is instant nostalgia. It will make you miss a time and a place. As a kid, it was often a song blaring from speakers as we trailed behind an adult at a weekend event.
We can all be what the Piano Man encountered. Lonely, dreaming, hurting, searching.
The album is enjoyable. “Piano Man” and “Captain Jack” are undeniable classics and two of my personal favorite songs.
“Billy the Kid” has a very cinematic, uplifting melody, and it is hard not to find yourself bobbing along to it. I do find that with a lot of Joel’s music.
In my opinion, Billy Joel has one of the strongest greatest hits albums of all time.
The “Ramblin’ man” cadence of “Travelin’ Prayer” turns it into a definite toe tapper, and then you ease back down with smooth ballads like “Somewhere Along the Line,” “If I Only Had the Words,” and “Stop in Nevada,” and after all that stylistic diversity already present, boom, you have “Worse Comes to Worst” with its island-yet-funk sound.
When you love and listen to music, you enjoy it. When you love and listen to music but are listening to it in an official review capacity, the artist’s genius truly shines through more.
I know Joel really cemented himself with 1977’s *The Stranger*, and deservedly so, but if you couldn’t see it coming like a freight train based off of Piano Man, I’m not sure what you were listening to.
Listen on Spotify!
Find it at your local record store!
Buy On Amazon!
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