52nd Street by Billy Joel (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: 52nd Street

Artist name: Billy Joel

Year: 1978

Number of discs: one

Label: Columbia Records

Collection: Selman

Distinguishing characteristics:

Scratched into side one of LP: AL 35609 – 1D

Scratched into side two of LP: BL 35609 – 1A

Buy it on Amazon: $59.99

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard this record before, though I would not be surprised to recognize some of its songs.

I previously reviewed Billy Joel’s extremely unusual 1983 record An Innocent Man, and thought it was pretty good.

What I expected

In photographs on the front of the album, back of the album and liner, Joel is holding a trumpet, so based on that and some other credited musicians (saxophone), I’ll guess soft rock and jazz.

What it was actually like

This was pretty bad. It was not as jazzy as I expected, though there was a significant jazz sound, especially on the second side. The trumpet solo on Zanzibar would have been great on an actual jazz record, and the saxophone in Stiletto was terrible.

I did recognize Big Shot, from its horrible chorus, and also My Life, a weird techno-piano hybrid.

Other dislikes included Rosalinda’s Eyes, the worst song on the record – really more elevator music than a song, and with some flute that made it even more awful, as well as Half a Mile Away, which sounded at the beginning like it would be a disco song, but mercifully was not.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing