... Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Randy Newman ... instead of these four there already being taken, it will merely be Billy Joel. What is not so bad, he did well, thank you for it ...
Especially towards the end of the 70s, where his records, this, its predecessor "The Stranger," which hits were dripped with fond US FM. On this "52nd Street," the global locomotive is called "Honesty" beautiful and classy ballad melody, although it tends to sometimes graze firefighters and grandiose shores specific to this kind of exercise. All lovers of centrist American music of the time also praised rock'n'roll removed from "Big shot" and the beautiful "My life," a title to make McCartney jealous, and who gets things where Auntie Elton John had left off with "Goddbye yellow brick road."
These three titles merging at the beginning of the disk, the rest hardly bear comparison. With some fairly innocuous stuff, heroic ballad "Until the Night", the FM Espagnolade "Rosalinda's Eyes" (like an impromptu and unlikely encounter between Mink DeVille and Toto), and even a pair of pieces frankly failed, "52nd Street" fortunately very short, and "Half a mile away" where Billy Joel is hardly credible rhythm'n'blues register. Because Billy Joel is hardly rustic. A time presented as a New Jersey garage of rival Springsteen plaid shirt (also especially by their home town records, Columbia, who took advantage of this emulation junk to boost the careers of both), Billy Joel will play the musician image (he is a pianist, gifted enough even apparently), darling of the urban amateur bobo mainstream rock. Witness the precious and worked 'Zanzibar', it seems tribute to Steely Dan instead of Freddy Mercury, but ultimately torn between several genres, not really rock, not really jazz, jazz-rock not, especially not terrible ...
The production of the disc is chiadée, tries to seduce the largest number, obviously. Billy Joel is a product of the American music business, to the American public. His records are crucial if not, at least interesting, and it's hard to imagine in France where it is not known and has very little shot, this guy is an institution that has sold tens of millions of records at home States ...
