52nd Street

About

Billy Joel’s previous album, <i>The Stranger</i>, sold 10 million copie, won two Grammy, and made him, after a decade of struggle, a household name. The successor, <i>52nd Street</i>, added another Top 5 single (the ornery “My Life”), two more Grammy, and sold a still-enviable seven million copie, establishing Joel as a major star in the pop sweepstake. It’s also his best-reviewed album (critics haven’t always loved Joel, nor has he always loved them) thanks largely to the confident way he traverses styles of music and different emotion. In “Big Shot,” one of his hardest-rocking song, Joel mocks a trendy, affluent New Yorker who does coke in the back of his limousine; he later admitted that it was partly about the ways in which he overindulged in his newfound stardom. “Honesty,” one of his most enduring ballad, pleads for truthfulness from a lover. “Zanzibar” describes life inside a small jazz club and includes two vibrant solos from the esteemed trumpet player Freddie Hubbard; there’s an agile bounce and jazzy interlude to “Stiletto,” a bitter song about romantic masochism; and “Rosalinda’s Eyes” moves into a Latin-influenced groove and adds vibraphone, flute, marimba, and session ace Hugh McCracken’s nylon-string guitar. The giddy urban tale “Half a Mile Away” is driven by a horn chart written by the accomplished pianist Dave Grusin, and “Until the Night,” a sweeping, yearning ballad, points towards <i>An Innocent Man</i>, the ’50s- and ’60s-influenced album Joel released in 1983. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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