Billy Joel The Stranger Poll. Pick Your Favourites & Discuss.

Love the title track. It's like an opening theme to a Fincher film, with two scenes being shown. I'm also a big fan of Get it Right The First Time. Liberty really nails the tune, and frankly, it's one of Billy's best vocal performances on the whole cd.
Vienna is the song everyone forgets about. No one says they like it............then they hear it and go, 'oh yea! what a great tune!'

 

My favorites are Movin Out and Only the Good Die Young....

 

This is my favorite Billy Joel album, I picked "Love the whole album", though I could take or leave Just The Way You Are

My Mom had this on 8-track, it's one of the 1st rock albums I listened to in its entirety

It interrupts part way through Italian Restaurant, the CD version sounds kind of fake-fixed to me because it doesn't have the track break

 

Love the whole album and the artwork. My favorite is probably "Vienna" and least favorite is "Get It Right Next Time". I remember I had packed the car and was going away to college, started the car and "Moving Out" was on the radio.
Although I certainly do not hate current pop music, I miss the days when albums like this one (Silk Degrees and Aja come to mind) that got tons of pop radio play and will always evoke a certain time in my life.

 

Movin' Out
Just The Way You Are
Only The Good Die Young
She’s Always A Woman


I used to really like 'Scenes' but I find it kind of annoying now. Probably due to classic rock radio.

 

1. Just The Way You Are
2. Movin' Out
3. The Stranger

4. Get It Right The First Time
5. She's Always a Woman

6. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
7. Only The Good Die Young

8. Vienna
9. Everybody Has a Dream

 

It’s one of those wonderful albums where every track is strong. I’ve always love this one.

 

One of the first albums I bought as a teenager. I loved it then but I'm not much of a Billy Joel fan these days.
I do still like this album though.
Vienna, Just The Way Your Are and Always A Woman are my favorites. I do like the cover but I'm not sure why. Nostalgia? Every time I see the new picture disc I want to buy it. Has anybody heard it?
As far as Dean Friedman goes I never heard Lucky Stars but Ariel is a classic.

 

I had a copy of Billy Joel's Illustrated Biography, and they misprinted the title of 'She's Always A Woman' as 'She's Only A Woman'. Oops.....

 

I've loved this album since it came out. I recently picked up a copy of the deluxe 2 disk reissue and I'm really enjoying the Carnegie Hall concert on the bonus disk. Sort of a snapshot of Joel's stage show just before the record and megastardom hit.

L.

 

I love Movin' Out,
I like Itallian Restraunt,
I can no longer listen to Good Die Young,
I dont like the artwork,
He's done better.

I will listen to The Stranger again soon due to this poll and see if my assessment has changed.

It was one of my first cassettes a long time ago!

 

I hear you.

 

Ariel is a lot better, though Lucky Stars was his big moment here. He was tipped for great things, much like Billy, but it never really came off. Andrew Gold was another one around this time trying to make a name for himself.

 

Vienna really made me buy the album... It was the B-side of Movin’ Out, as I’ve said before, and other than that I don’t think at that point I’d heard anything else off the album. Just The Way You Are became a single but Barry White’s cover was actually a bigger hit in the UK!

 

Another reason I think The Stranger took off was that he filled the void left by Elton John who’d been doing this kind of thing for years. 1976/7 were slow years, by comparison, for Elton, who was surely exhausted after his early to mid 70s success. Billy filled the gap nicely, though Elton would find his form again a few years later.

 

Because I got The Stranger ‘late’, I picked up 52nd Street only a couple of months afterwards. For me, it didn’t live up to The Stranger at all. It seemed very different. I loved My Life, but the album didn’t seem anywhere near as consistent as The Stranger. In fact, I probably didn’t learn to appreciate 52nd Street until I got it on CD 10 years later. Now I like it almost as much. In fact, being as 52nd Street celebrates it’s 40th anniversary later this year, I nearly made that the focus of this thread instead..

 

I guess Billy got too much radio airplay, I find the undercurrent of seeming hatred for him quite bizarre.
This was/is a fantastic album. Joel was a great songwriter, a great performer and it was rare that one of his albums wasn't worth the price of admission.
I have the sacd and like the 5.1 very much

 

What's not to love?

Very large Billy Joel fan here. When I was in high school in the late 70's this album was still huge, and like many it was my first album of his. Over the years I've become burned out on it but for awhile it was my favorite, only to be supplanted by 52nd Street, which remains so to this day. It's obviously a brilliant record, with a locked-in band, and Joel's vibrant writing at its peak. Few artists could paint a picture like Joel, and he really gets to the heart of things in such a clever and succinct way that it sometimes feels like you're opening up an old photo album when you listen to a song like "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant". He rightfully put Phil Ramone with the band on the back cover, an unheard of practice-but Ramone was as much a factor in Joel's popularity as anyone.

My favorite song, though, has always been the apparently unpopular "Get It Right The First Time", which I sometimes believe is the story of my life.

 

US and UK charts for week ending 27th May 1978. The Stranger and it’s singles were still on the charts.

 

I only like Only The Good Die Young on this.

 

My favourite BJ song probably

 

I am more or less Billy-Joel positive and am sometimes surprised how much I enjoy his work between Turnstiles and Innocent Man -- surprised because, when I'm not listening to him, I mostly forget about him. And I can see where some of his detractors come from: he's not a first-rate vocalist or lyricist and that will attract some criticism. The lyrics in particular sometimes suggest a lack of self-reflection and a rather stunted view of male-female romance. But, within his peak years, he wrote consistently hook-filled songs and (true story!) occasionally inspired lyrics -- and that's just way better than most professional recording artists, now isn't it? Also: his band does well, his songs are nicely arranged, and he's beautifully produced. So: a lot of pleasure to be found there!

The Stranger suffers from some overexposure -- which is more to BJ's credit than his fault -- but I do love Movin' Out and Only the Good Die Young, and there's not a truly weak cut on the album. Is Just the Way You Are cliched? Yeah. But there's a place in human experience for that kind of cliched love song and I think people gotta respect that fact. Ditto the mild myth-making Springsteenisms of Italian Restaurant. So: detractors need to chill on this one. It's a strong album and those who diss it are cutting themselves off from too many pleasures. My advice here: don't let the transcendent be the enemy of the pretty good. And Billy Joel was, at his peak, pretty good -- and that ain't bad.

 

Movin Out (Anthony's Song) - Well, I fell in love with this album from the opening track. Billy paints such a vivid picture of these characters. There's a lot of different sounds here, but they're nicely crafted into a structured song.

The Stranger - This song shows how the album uses tonal and tempo changes in the songs, to create a musical landscape. A song about how you never really know someone, even sometimes yourself.

Just the Way You Are - Some people are put off by the sappy, lounge aspect of this, but I think it's a really pretty and heartfelt song.

Scenes From an Italian Restaurant - The epic. Wonderfully constructed, with the bookends about someone longing for the past. Again, we get nice tempo/tonal changes. The vivid storytelling reminds me of Bruce Springsteen.

Vienna - Beautiful song, which IIRC was an ode to his daughter. It has a sad feel that life isn't easy, but happiness is attainable. Builds nicely, then closes quietly.

She's Always a Woman to Me - Ah, women...they can drive you crazy, but at the end of the day you love them - they're the universe's greatest creation. Billy's voice is really nice here.

Get it Right the First Time - Nice little groove on this, but I think it's kind of a bland song overall.

Everybody Has a Dream - Not bad, but a weak way to end the album.

 

Movin' Out
Only the Good Die Young
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
Just The Way You Are

These are my favorite tracks from this album. "Only The Good Die Young" and "Movin' Out" got a lot of airplay on rock stations, while "Just The Way You Are" (which is a fantastic ballad) and "She's Always A Woman" I could hear in elevators, offices, stores - muzak.
My first Joel album was Glass Houses and I enjoy that more, Stranger is a strong precursor. I have the deluxe edition with the Best Buy bonus disc, I really like watching Joel perform on the Old Grey Whistle Test.

 

If it wasn't for Strangers I might not have listened to Billy Joel at all. However about 20 years after its release I went to a Billy Joel concert and though I didn't go kicking and screaming it wasn't my idea. Live the guy blew me away and that allowed me to revisit his catalog and become a much bigger fan of his work.