52nd Street (1978)

52nd Street is the sixth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on October 11, 1978, by Columbia Records. It was the follow-up to his breakthrough studio album, The Stranger. Joel tried to give it a fresh sound, hiring various jazz musicians to differentiate it from his previous studio albums.

The album's title is a reference to 52nd Street, a popular street location in Midtown Manhattan for jazz musicians, beginning during the Great Depression and continuing through to the 1950s. Joel's label was headquartered within the CBS Building on West 52nd Street at the time of the album's release. The studio where recording took place, A&R Recording, was also on 52nd Street; the studio's freight elevator appears on the album cover.

52nd Street was an instant commercial success, becoming Joel's first album to reach number one on the Billboard 200, a spot it held for eight non-consecutive weeks. Three songs reached the Top 40 in the United States, contributing to the album's success: "My Life" (number 3), "Big Shot" (number 14), and "Honesty" (number 24). It was similarly well received by critics, earning two Grammy awards for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Album of the Year at the 22nd Annual Grammy Awards. The latter Grammy was presented to its producer, Phil Ramone. Upon Ramone's death, 52nd Street's Album of the Year Grammy was passed on to Joel.

The album was among the first commercially released on the compact disc format, reaching store shelves on October 1, 1982, in Japan. It was one of 50 CDs released that day by the CBS/Sony label, including The Stranger, but bore the first catalogue number in the sequence, 35DP-1, and so is frequently cited as the first to be released. In keeping with this history, it was also the first release when Sony returned to manufacturing vinyl records in 2018.

Reception

Reviewing 52nd Street for The Village Voice in 1979, Robert Christgau noted Joel's talent for writing catchy songs and likened him to Elton John, albeit with more "smarm". The Globe and Mail determined that "the music really is starting to sound repetitive and formulaic—as though the songwriter's musical vocabulary is too limited to match his sense of the big city's varied dramas."

Retrospectively, AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised Joel for expanding stylistically on 1977's The Stranger, describing 52nd Street as "more sophisticated and somewhat jazzy". In 2000, it was voted number 621 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003, 52nd Street was ranked number 352 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and at 354 on a 2012 revised list.

Song notes

The song "Rosalinda's Eyes" was inspired by Joel's mother, Rosalind Nyman Joel.

The song "Big Shot" was inspired by a dinner with Bianca Jagger.

Personnel

The Lords of 52nd Street

• Billy Joel – vocals, piano, Yamaha CP-70, Fender Rhodes, synthesizers
• Doug Stegmeyer – bass, backing vocals
• Liberty DeVitto – drums
• Richie Cannata – saxophones, clarinet, organ

David Brown – electric guitar (3)

Russell Javors – acoustic guitar (3)

Technical

• Produced by Phil Ramone
• Engineered by Jim Boyer
• Assistant engineer – David Martone
• Production associates – Kathy Kurs and Carol Peters

Ted Jensen – mastering at Sterling Sound (New York City, NY)

• John Berg – cover design
• Jim Houghton – photography