• AllMyVinyl #7
• Band: Billy Joel
• Album Title: 52nd Street
• Release Date: 11 Oct 1978
• Date purchased: 25 Dec 2021
• Location purchased: Christmas present (Vinyl Collection Vol 1 set)
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Full album on Youtube ]

Billy Joel was one the first artists I was aware as someone other than a random song I’d hear on the radio.  That he he had a catalog and a collection of albums was something that latched onto in my youth.  I was 13 when this came out, so I knew it well.  Of course in 1978 when I was still in school, I didn’t have much money, so I didn’t buy albums.  I relied on the radio, and radio was the big way I consumed this album.  However, it was also stupid popular at the time with a few big singles (My Life, Big Shot, Honesty) so I got by.  I also had an English teacher in middle school who would play Billy Joel in class, so I heard this one there a lot (Hello Art Beyer).

It has a different sound than his handful of albums before this – has a jazz feel to a lot of tracks, which was a different sound for him, one I liked.  I actually like quite a few non singles from this album – I think the “deep cut” (or album song) is a stronger game here.  Zanzibar & Rosalinda’s Eyes are great.  Stiletto is awesome – and I always wondered if that was written about a woman in his life.  If you couple it with “All for Leyna” from the next album, it has a very interesting message.

Speaking of hits, the song “Honesty” was a massive hit for him, but one Christmas Eve I was listening to the radio (probably 1978), and my station must have played it once every half an hour – it was the first song I can recall crossing over into “You’re playing this too much – I don’t want to hear it anymore – arrrrrrgh!”

As I mentioned, Zanzibar is a great track – has a vibe unlike most Billy Joel songs.  Jazz legend Freddie Hubbard appears on that song.  There’s some cool “fun facts” for this song over on Wikipedia – go check that out.  In 2022, Joel released an animated video for the song Zanzibar – it’s embedded below.

I also recall the song “My Life” was used as the title theme for the old Tom Hanks sitcom “Bosom Buddies“.  That show ran for two seasons from 1980-1982 for a total of 37 episodes.  Joel’s song was used in the opening titles.  I’ve embedded the opening titles for that show in one of the videos below.

As I listen to this now for my vinyl play through, I’m taken by how much more of a jazz sound it has (big time in the title track).  Perhaps that has something to do with the death of my father last fall who was a big jazz fan, so I’m hearing that in more places.  It’s not like 52nd Street is in any way new to me – I’ve heard the albums probably over 100 times in the previous decades – I know the music well.  But in 2024, it has a new feel to me I don’t recall from the past.  That’s a joy to discover for sure.

This album came out four years before I started going to concerts, so I didn’t see this tour.  However, I did see Joel live in 1982, 1984, 1986, and then again in 2019.  In 2022, I saw “The Lords of 52nd Street” live, which is most of Joel’s band from this era minus Joel himself.  I met Liberty DeVitto at that show, which was a lot of fun.

I don’t recall now in what format I bought in the past.  It was PROBABLY vinyl, but I honestly can’t tell for sure.  When I got back into vinyl in 2020, I didn’t have this, and the collection from the past my brother sent me didn’t have this, so it might have been a cassette, but I’m not sure.  The copy I have now came from the box set “Billy Joel – The Vinyl Collection Volume 1” which had all of his albums up to this point packaged together.  It was a very nice Christmas present from my family back home in 2021. :)

Overall, an album I knew well, has some very strong songs – a pleasure to listen to again today.