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Janis Joplin Janis Joplin Both are CBS/Sony Japan pressings of American career retrospectives, the format where the Japanese market's care with imported rock shows most. -
Eagles Hell Freezes Over Eagles and Billy Joel are the two pillars of '70s American soft rock in the collection. Both were huge on radio and both were dismissed by critics, then reappraised as craftsmen.
Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II (1985) is a double album covering Billy Joel’s first twelve years, from “Piano Man” in 1973 to An Innocent Man in 1983, with two new songs added at the end. It became one of the best-selling albums in American history. That’s a reminder of how completely Joel owned a particular space: the piano-led, New York-set, sung-like-a-short-story pop song.
The overlooked thing about Joel is how much of his catalogue is pastiche done with real affection. “The Longest Time” is doo-wop, “Uptown Girl” is the Four Seasons, “Tell Her About It” is Motown, and the whole of An Innocent Man is a tour of the records he grew up on. He worked as a songwriter in the Brill Building tradition, decades after it ended. This is a CBS/Sony Japan pressing, which suits it: Japan was one of Joel’s strongest markets, and “The Stranger” was released as a single there and became a hit.