The Stranger
The Stranger is the fifth studio album by Billy Joel released on 1977-09-29. It was produced by Phil Ramone and mostly features piano pop rock music. Joel's publisher, Columbia Records was considering ending Joel's contract due to poor sales of his previous album, but The Stranger ended up becoming massively successful, becoming Joel's best-selling album, and even the publisher's best selling album of all time up until that point.
Contents
Personal
I knew of a couple of the songs from this album from hearing them on the radio as a child. In the 1990s, my mother bought the CD version of Greatest Hits: Volume I & Volume II which I loved and listened to on repeat for weeks. I ended up buying the album for myself somewhere around 2000. Greatest Hits includes the bulk of the songs from this album, but, in the mid-2000s, my friend Jackie introduced me to the song Vienna, which isn't on Greatest Hits. She explained how the song was very important to her because it spoke a necessary message to her during a time of depression in her life; I listened to it and loved it. Since I already have most of the songs from the Greatest Hits album, I haven't bothered to buy The Stranger, but it's still my favorite Billy Joel album.
I do not own this album.
Track Listing
All songs composed by and sung by Billy Joel.
| Track | Title | Rank | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) | 7 | 
|
| A2 | The Stranger | 4 | 
|
| A3 | Just the Way You Are | 6 | 
|
| A4 | Scenes from an Italian Restaurant | 2 | 
|
| B1 | Vienna | 3 |
|
| B2 | Only the Good Die Young | 1 |
|
| B3 | She's Always a Woman | 5 |
|
| B4 | Get It Right the First Time | 8 | 
|
| B5 | Everybody Has a Dream | 9 |
|
The album's total score is 514.
Media
The album cover features Billy Joel in a suit sitting on a bed looking down at a mask. I like the photo and think it nicely portrays the album's theme. Although all formats and regions use the same photo, there are variations in the size and placement of the lettering and the degree of sepia versus grayscale in the photo. These variations even occur in the same region, format, and publisher. Here are a couple examples:
Vinyl, grayscale, small lettering.
Vinyl, sepia, large lettering.
Links
