To my ears, Billy Joel’s artistic hot streak lasted two years, 1977 and 1978, when he released far and away his best LPs: The Stranger and 52nd Street. (For the record, I think 52nd Street wins by a nose as the top Joel album). The rest of his discs are marked by a few good songs and a handful of great ones, surrounded by average material (and early on, at least, substandard production).
Sony has seen fit to issue this 30th Anniversary Edition 31 years after the fact in a three-disc box set that includes a remaster of the original album; a previously unreleased 1977 concert from Carnegie Hall; and a DVD that includes a making-of doc and a 1978 live show culled from the BBC program The Old Grey Whistle Test.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2008.