The Stranger (album)

The Stranger is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on September 29, 1977, by Columbia Records. It was the first of Joel's albums to be produced by Phil Ramone, with whom he would work for five subsequent albums.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Joel's previous album, Turnstiles (1976), had sold modestly, and peaked at only number 122 on the US Billboard 200 chart, prompting Columbia to consider dropping him if his next release sold poorly. Joel wanted the new album to feature his touring band, formed during the production of Turnstiles. The band consisted of drummer Liberty DeVitto, bassist Doug Stegmeyer, and multi-instrumentalist Richie Cannata, who played the saxophone and organ. Seeking out a new producer, he first turned to veteran Beatles producer George Martin before coming across and settling on Ramone, whose name he had seen on albums by other artists such as Paul Simon. Recording took place over three weeks, featuring DeVitto, Stegmeyer, and Cannata. Other studio musicians filled in as guitarists on various songs.

Spending six weeks at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, The Stranger was Joel's critical and commercial breakthrough. Four singles were released in the US, all of which became Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: "Just the Way You Are" (number three), "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", "She's Always a Woman" (both number 17), and "Only the Good Die Young" (number 24). Other songs, such as "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" and "Vienna", have become staples of his career and are frequently performed in his live shows. The album won two awards at the 21st Annual Grammy Awards in 1979: Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Just the Way You Are". It remains his best-selling non-compilation album to date and surpassed Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge over Troubled Water (1970) to become Columbia's best-selling album release, with more than 10 million units sold worldwide. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album number 70 on its 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", repositioned to number 169 in a 2020 revision.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 2008, The Stranger was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Background

File:Billy Joel "The Stranger" 1977 press photo.jpg

Joel in a promotional photo for The Stranger

Before The Stranger, Billy Joel was on the verge of being dropped by his record label Columbia Records. After the unexpected success of Joel's second album, Piano Man (1973), his subsequent albums were commercially disappointing. Turnstiles, Joel's 1976 release, had peaked at only number 122 on the Billboard 200 chart.<ref name="goodman">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

By 1976, Joel had formed a reliable touring band, consisting of Doug Stegmeyer on bass, Liberty DeVitto on drums and Richie Cannata on saxophone, flute, clarinet and organ. Joel grew to appreciate this group of musicians, finding that they had a high-energy, rough-around-the-edges feel that he hoped to capture in his studio recordings. Joel had mostly worked with session players for his first three studio albums, which contained only scattered contributions from his own backup musicians, and strongly disliked the polished sound of these albums. During the production of Turnstiles, his fourth album, Joel initially worked with veteran producer Jim Guercio, who had him work with members of Elton John's band; dissatisfied with the results, Joel instead opted to self-produce the album and record with his own touring band. Joel was likewise set on recording his fifth studio album with this band. Having written some new material for the record,<ref name="Complete Albums">Template:Cite web</ref> Joel sought a producer who could cultivate his desired style. Joel, a longtime fan of the Beatles, initially looked to famed Beatles producer George Martin. But after meeting with Joel, Martin expressed interest in producing the album, but did not want to use Joel's band, wishing instead to bring in session players. Joel, however, was adamant in his desire to record with his own band and declined Martin's offer. Ultimately, Joel turned to Phil Ramone, a veteran New York City sound engineer and record producer who had recently worked with Paul Simon, another singer-songwriter, on Simon's album Still Crazy After All These Years (1975). According to Joel, he and Ramone met with each other at Fontana di Trevi, an Italian restaurant near Carnegie Hall, where Joel had been playing at the time. The restaurant would go on to inspire the setting of "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant", a song on The Stranger. According to Joel, Ramone expressed an appreciation for Joel's band and their energy, and understood the reasoning behind Joel's attitude towards recording, which ultimately led Joel to choose Ramone as the producer for his next album.<ref name="Complete Albums"/><ref name="Phil Tribute">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Production and recording

The recording sessions for The Stranger, described by Joel as "a blast" to be a part of,<ref name="youtube1">Template:Cite web</ref> took place across the span of three weeks in between July and August 1977.<ref name="40th">Template:Cite web</ref> The album contains nine songs, four of which were released as singles in North America. The songs were all recorded with Joel alongside his band, which he had formed while touring, in addition to various other musicians who were brought into the studio for specific songs.<ref name="Phil Tribute"/> Despite the formation of Joel's band, the songs on The Stranger didn't feature any consistent guitarists, with different players instead featuring in each song, and according to Joel, the reason for the initial lack of a constant guitarist was because it was hard to find the right one.<ref name="Complete Albums"/> The photograph on the back cover of the album, featuring Joel, Ramone (donning a Yankees shirt at the time of the picture) and each of the band members, was taken at the Supreme Macaroni Company, one of several restaurants where the group would go to "have these crazy lunches and dinners".<ref name="Phil Tribute"/>

The opening song, "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", centers around Anthony, a grocery-store employee from Long Island who "dreams of making it big", receiving pressure from his family to move out and go his own way.<ref name="40th"/> Joel stated in a Q&A session that he initially wrote the song's lyrics to the tune of the song "Laughter in the Rain" by Neil Sedaka, doing so without even realizing the similarity until it was brashly pointed out the next day by drummer Liberty DeVitto. Not wanting to waste all of the words he had come up with, Joel rewrote the song, coming up with a new melody that fit with the lyrics.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The album's title track, according to Joel, was written by him without any core themes in mind and could be open up to interpretation, though he stated that it could be seen as a song about a man with schizophrenia.<ref name="Today Show">Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Full citation needed While composing the song, Joel whistled the track's signature theme for Ramone, claiming that he (Joel) needed to find an instrument to play it. Ramone told Joel that the whistling he did was perfect, and thus it was kept in the final recording.<ref name="40th"/> According to Joel in an interview with Today, the percussive rhythm used in the song came about while he was toying around with an Ace Tone Rhythm Ace drum machine, which contained a drum beat that he heard while scrolling through the machine's library of rhythm tracks. After hearing the beat, he thought that the rhythm would be nice to fool around with, and wrote the song shortly afterwards.<ref name="Today Show"/> "Just the Way You Are" was inspired by Joel's love for his wife at the time, Elizabeth Weber. He stated on a SiriusXM broadcast in 2016 that the melody came to him in a dream while he was working on The Stranger. He forgot about the melody shortly afterwards, but it came back to him while he was in a business meeting.<ref name="SiriusXM">Template:Cite web</ref> Joel originally considered keeping the song off the album, as he dismissed it as a "gloppy ballad" that was out-of-place compared to the rest of the album. Ramone disagreed, and brought Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow into the studio to prove that it was worth including. Upon hearing the song, the two artists both praised it, thus convincing him to feature the song.<ref name="40th"/> The 7Template:Frac minute epic "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant", which follows a pair of young lovers from Long Island named Brenda and Eddie who go through a failed marriage, is three different, shorter songs: "The Italian Restaurant Song", "Things Are OK in Oyster Bay" and "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie".<ref name="40th"/> Joel stitched the three songs together, inspired by the similar approach taken with side two of the Beatles' Abbey Road<ref name="Billy Talks">Template:Cite news</ref> and by Freddie Mercury and Queen with "Bohemian Rhapsody", while Ramone helped intertwine them with backing orchestration.<ref name="SiriusXM"/>

The song "Vienna", which opens up the album's B-side, was inspired by a trip Joel took to Vienna, Austria, to visit his father a few years after starting his music career. While there, he found that Austrians had a vastly different outlook on life than the one he was familiar with in America. As he recalls, Joel had this realization after taking notice of an old woman sweeping out on the city streets, telling his father that he pitied the woman for having to do such a menial and unimportant task; Joel's father responded by explaining that the woman was giving herself a sense of worth by doing a service that helped everyone rather than "sitting at home wasting away".<ref name="40th"/> Joel tried to make the song feel Viennese in nature and compared it to the work of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, specifically The Threepenny Opera.<ref name="SiriusXM"/> "Only the Good Die Young", which is sung from the point-of-view of a boy trying to appeal to an abstinent Catholic woman, was inspired by a girl named Virginia Davis, on whom Joel had a crush in high school. According to Joel, he saw Davis looking at him while he was playing in his high school band, The Echoes, which was the event that had him "completely hooked" to the prospect of being a musician.<ref name="Phil Tribute"/> "Only the Good Die Young" was written by Joel while opening for the Beach Boys in Knoxville, Tennessee, at which point it sounded slower-pace and more akin to a reggae tune, with Joel even singing the song's lyrics in a Jamaican accent. The mood of the song was shifted at the insistence of drummer Liberty DeVitto, who reportedly said to Joel "Why are you singing like that? The closest you've been to Jamaica was the Long Island Rail Road!" Ramone suggested that the song be played as a straight-four piece while DeVitto played a shuffle beat, a proposition that Joel found he enjoyed the sound of despite the concept initially seeming "odd and clunky". The song featured guitar playing by Hugh McCracken, a famous session player who Ramone brought in.<ref name="Phil Tribute"/> "She's Always a Woman", like "Just the Way You Are", was written about Elizabeth Weber, described by Joel as "a commentary on women in business being persecuted and insulted".<ref name="40th"/> Joel tried to stylize the song as one that would be sung by Gordon Lightfoot.<ref name="SiriusXM"/> "Get It Right the First Time" is inspired by the challenge of first meeting and confronting a person, highlighting the importance of not flubbing such an encounter and "gett[ing] it right the first time".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The album's final song, "Everybody Has a Dream", a gospel-influenced piece, was also inspired by Joel's wife. The song closes the album out with a reprise of the whistled theme from "The Stranger".<ref name="40th"/>

Commercial performance

Spending a total of 17 weeks in varying positions within the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart, The Stranger first entered the bottom position on January 21, 1978, approximately four months after its initial release. A month later, on February 18, the album reached its peak position at number 2 on the chart and remained there for six more weeks. The second single from the album, "Just The Way You Are", peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart,<ref name="40th" /> having received a boost in popularity following Joel's performance of the song on the February 18, 1978, telecast of Saturday Night Live.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The other three singles were all top 40 hits, with "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" and "She's Always a Woman" both peaking at number 17. While "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" was the first single released for the album, radio stations put little attention toward it, instead expressing interest in "Just the Way You Are"; thus, the latter song was released just six weeks following the debut of "Movin' Out", after which it achieved far larger success. The single for "Movin' Out" was later rereleased, after which it achieved higher success and ultimately became a hit.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to Joel, "Only the Good Die Young" sold poorly when it was first put out as a single; however, following the song's release, Christian groups and archdiocese areas began calling for the song to be banned on several radio stations across the nation. The controversy helped raise the song's popularity, particularly among rebellious youth according to Joel, and the single thus fared much better as a result, ultimately peaking at number 24 in the US singles chart.<ref name="WLS"/><ref name="Good Die">Template:Cite web</ref> The Stranger remains one of Joel's best-selling original studio albums to date, receiving a Diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for surpassing sales of 10 million units.<ref name="WLS">Template:Cite web</ref> At the time, it had surpassed Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge over Troubled Water to become Columbia Records’ best-selling album release.<ref name=30th>Template:Cite web</ref> In Canada the album spent 72 weeks in the Top 100 Album charts between November 1977 and April 1979.

Reception

The Stranger was well received by critics, particularly in retrospect, with many considering it to contain some of Joel's best-written material. In a contemporary review of the album, Ira Mayer of Rolling Stone deemed it an improvement over Joel's previous studio efforts, praising its musical variety and Ramone's production.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In a less enthusiastic review, Village Voice critic Robert Christgau graded the album "B−" and held it slightly above Joel's previous works; speaking specifically of Joel himself, he wrote that the artist had "more or less grown up" with what he considered less egotistical songwriting, and that he is "now as likeable as your once-rebellious and still-tolerant uncle who has the quirk of believing that OPEC was designed to ruin his air-conditioning business".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Retrospectively, Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine described The Stranger as "a concept album of sorts, an ode to the singer's native New York underscored by his paranoid obsession (and resistance) to change". He called the album "a rejection of the American Dream", highlighting the pessimism expressed in some of its songs' lyrics.<ref name="SlantReview"/> Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic praised The Stranger as a highlight of Joel's discography, noting that its lyrical shortcomings are outweighed by Joel's musical flair, and ultimately concluding that Joel "rarely wrote a set of songs better than those on The Stranger, nor did he often deliver an album as consistently listenable".<ref name="AllMusic"/> Rolling Stone ranked The Stranger at number 67 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It also placed on the 2012 and 2020 editions of the list at numbers 70 and 169, respectively.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 2000, The Stranger was voted number 246 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.<ref name="Larkin">Template:Cite book</ref>

As his breakthrough album, The Stranger kicked off a long string of successful albums for Joel, continuing up through 1993's River of Dreams. George Martin, who had initially declined to produce The Stranger using Joel's band, reportedly wrote Joel a letter following the album's massive success, in which he congratulated Joel and reflected that he was wrong about the band.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Phil Ramone would continue to serve as Joel's producer for several years, working with him on each of his albums up through 1986's The Bridge. "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" went on to lend its name to a 2002 jukebox musical, featuring several of Joel's songs alongside narrative choreography by Twyla Tharp. The play ran successfully on Broadway for three years, holding its final performance on December 15, 2005, after a total of 1,303 performances.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 2017, to celebrate the album's 40th anniversary, a picture-disc vinyl rerelease of The Stranger with newly remastered audio was released by Brookville Records on October 20.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Many of the songs from the album went on to become staples in Joel's repertoire. Though never released as a single, "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" is a staple of his live set, named by Rolling StoneTemplate:'s Rob Sheffield as Joel's equivalent to Bruce Springsteen's "Jungleland".<ref name="40th"/><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Joel stated in an interview that "I don't think I could do a show without performing that song."<ref name="Billy Talks"/> "Vienna" has also become a popular part of his live set; when Joel lets the audience choose between it and "Just the Way You Are", "Vienna" is most often the winning contender.<ref name="Colbert 5">Template:Cite episode</ref> The song was featured in an episode of the TV series Taxi,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and was prominently showcased later on in the 2004 teenage comedy film 13 Going on 30. Joel has cited "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" and "Vienna" as his favorite and 5th-favorite songs that he has written, respectively.<ref name="Colbert 5"/>

Impact and legacy

The Stranger is widely recognised as Billy Joel's artistic breakthrough. It refined his songwriting voice into a concise mixture of narrative detail, melodic craft and genre-flexibility, and it established recurring artistic concerns—character-driven storytelling, multi-part song-structures and a moral, nostalgic gaze on suburban life—that would define his work thereafter. <ref name="auto3">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="auto2">Template:Cite web</ref>

A central component of the album's artistic legacy is its production and arrangement: Joel's decision to record with his touring band under producer Phil Ramone yielded an immediacy and band-chemistry rarely present on his earlier records, and Ramone's studio craft is repeatedly cited as a defining factor in shaping the album’s sonic identity. Scholars and music writers point to the Ramone–Joel partnership on The Stranger as the start of a long creative collaboration that allowed Joel’s stage energy to be translated into durable studio performances. <ref name="auto1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref>

The album's songwriting techniques—notably the suite-like Scenes from an Italian Restaurant and the elliptical, metaphorical ballad "Vienna"—are repeatedly cited as exemplars of narrative ambition within late-1970s American pop-rock. Music critics compare Joel's long-form storytelling on the record to contemporaneous rock epics and praise its economical yet vivid lyricism; such tracks have become touchstones for discussions about how pop-song form can contain extended, novelistic storytelling. <ref name="auto1"/><ref name="auto3"/>

Critical consensus and institutional recognition have reinforced the album's artistic status. Major music outlets and retrospective reviewers consistently treat the record as Joel's high-water mark for mature songwriting and album construction; the album's inclusion in curated “best-of” lists and its formal induction into the Grammy Hall of Fame are frequently invoked as markers of its lasting artistic reputation. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="auto2"/>

Taken together, commentators place The Stranger in the lineage of late-1970s albums that redefined how mainstream pop-rock could combine intimate, character-led songwriting with studio craft and theatrical ambition; the record is invoked both as a model of concise narrative songwriting and as an example of a producer–artist collaboration that successfully translated live-band vitality into a coherent studio statement.<ref name="auto3"/><ref name="auto"/>

Track listing

Template:Track listing Template:Track listing A reprise of "The Stranger" plays after "Everybody Has a Dream" at about 4:35.

Personnel

• Billy Joel – vocals, acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes piano, keyboards, synthesizers
• Richie Cannata – organ, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute, tuba
• Dominic Cortese – accordion (4, 5)
• Richard Tee – organ (9)
• Hiram Bullock – electric guitar
• Steve Khan – 6 and 12-string electric guitars, acoustic rhythm guitar, high-string guitar
• Hugh McCracken – acoustic guitar (3, 4, 7–9)
• Steve Burgh – acoustic guitar (3, 7), electric guitar (4)
• Doug Stegmeyer – bass, car (1)
• Liberty DeVitto – drums
• Ralph MacDonald – percussion (2, 3, 8, 9)
• Phil Woods – alto saxophone (3)
• Patrick Williams – orchestration
• Patti Austin, Lani Groves, Gwen Guthrie, and Phoebe Snow – backing vocals (9)

Production

• Phil Ramone – producer, engineer
• Jim Boyer – engineer
• Ted Jensen – mastering at Sterling Sound (New York, NY)
• Kathy Kurs – production assistance
• Jim Houghton – photography

Charts

Weekly charts

Original issue

Chart (1977-1978)	Peak position
Australian (Kent Music Report)<ref name="auchart">Template:Cite book</ref>	2
Canadian Albums (RPM)<ref> Template:Cite magazine </ref>	2
Dutch Albums (MegaCharts)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	36
French Albums (SNEP) <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	15
Icelandic Albums (Tónlist)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	3
Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)<ref>Template:Cite web Set "Tipo" on "Album". Then, in the "Artista" field, search "Billy Joel".</ref>	21
Japanese Albums (Oricon)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	3
New Zealand Albums (RIANZ) <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	2
UK Albums (OCC) <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	24
US Billboard 200<ref name="USchart">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Billboard 200">Template:Cite magazine</ref>	2
Zimbabwean Albums (ZIMA)<ref>* Zimbabwe. Kimberley, C. Zimbabwe: albums chart book. Harare: C. Kimberley, 2000</ref>	5

2008 reissue

Chart (2008)	Position
Japanese Albums (Oricon)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	28

Year-end charts

Chart (1978)	Position
Australian Albums Chart<ref name="auchart" />	5
Canadian Albums Chart<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>	2
Japanese Albums Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	12
New Zealand Albums Chart<ref name="NZ">Template:Cite web</ref>	4
US Billboard 200<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	4

Chart (1979)	Position
New Zealand Albums Chart<ref name=autogenerated1>Template:Cite web</ref>	48
US Billboard 200<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	18

Accolades

Grammy Awards

Year	Winner	Category
1978	"Just the Way You Are"	Record of the Year
1978	"Just the Way You Are"	Song of the Year

Release history

Media	Release date	Publisher	Catalog number
Vinyl LP	09/1977	Columbia	JC 34987
Vinyl LP Australian release	1977	Columbia (CBS Inc.)	SBP 237057
CD 1st Issue Japan	March 6, 1982	CBS/Sony	35-DP-2
Cassette	10/1990	Columbia	JCT 34987
CD	1990	Columbia	CK 34987
CD Remastered	October 20, 1998	Columbia	CK 69384
Super Audio CD	July 31, 2001	Columbia	CS 69384
2CD Legacy Edition	07/08/08	Columbia/Legacy	88697 22581 2
2CD/DVD 30th Anniversary Edition	07/08/08	Columbia/Legacy	88697 30801 2
SACD Remastered	2012	Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab	UDSACD 2089

See also

• List of best-selling albums in the United States

External links

• The Stranger (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)