Ryan's Reviews

I've been down this road before. An artist or group releases an exceptional album, e.g. Pink Floyd "The Dark Side of the Moon", Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman "Bat out of Hell", Alanis Morissette "Jagged Little Pill", and then they have to produce the follow-up. "The Dark Side of the Moon" yielded "Wish You Were Here" which is my personal favourite Pink Floyd album, Meat and Jim produced "Dead Ringer" after Meat Loaf lost his singing voice and Jim recorded the original follow-up "Bad for Good" as his own album, and for Alanis it was 1998's "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie". For Billy Joel, he had just struck it big with "The Stranger" after five years, writing and performing both in the studio and on tour, having released: "Cold Spring Harbor" (1971), "Piano Man" (1973), "Streetlife Serenade" (1974) and "Turnstiles" (1976). Singles from "The Stra...

As I'm about to write up my thoughts on the fifth Billy Joel album, the classic "The Stranger" released 29 September 1977 on Columbia Records, produced by Phil Ramone, the opening theme for the title song is running through my mind. It's so clear, in fact, I almost feel like I'm listening to it right now on my headphones. When Billy released "Turnstiles" in 1976 (see my earlier post), there was feeling among the record company of, well, apprehension. He'd had a great start with "Piano Man", the album had gone platinum, followed up by "Streetlife Serenade" and "Turnstiles" in the next three years, but "Turnstiles" hadn't really performed to company expectations. Billy might be dropped if the next album wasn't a bigger success. So you might know what actually happened next then. Billy was seeking out a producer, and he knew that he wanted to use his touring band which had worked very successfully before o...

I don't know if you've tried this before, but if you look at the front cover of the fourth Billy Joel album "Turnstiles" you'll actually see all of the different people from the songs. Well, most of them anyway. So grab a copy or put in a search on Google, and let's take a look.  Well, that's Billy of course, but to the left of him is the song "I've Loved These Days". On the right is the grandparent telling their grandchild the story of "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)". Next to them on the left is "All You Wanna Do is Dance". That's "James" behind her on the left and next to him on the left again is "Prelude/Angry Young Man". Not sure who the character is behind "Miami 2017" but I'm going to guess that it's probably "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" or "Summer, Highland Falls". Then you've got the Turnstiles themselves, what I like to think of as t...