The Best Song From Every Billy Joel Album

One of the most cogent pieces of pop music analysis in recent memory is not an essay, or a review, or a magazine cover story, but a 2023 tweet from writer Matthew Perpetua, who broke Billy Joel‘s songs down into four categories: “You Think You’re Better Than Me??,” “Look at This Asshole / These Assholes,” “Things Used to Be Better” and “Here’s Some Advice, Moron.”

All four of these themes are present in our list of The Best Song From Every Billy Joel Album. Together, these 12 songs and their respective LPs — excluding his 2001 classical album Fantasies & Delusions — show an artist who was equally ambitious and cynical, scathing in his teardowns of ex-lovers and ex-colleagues but still hopelessly romantic and eager to succeed. He wrote about people whose lives didn’t turn out the way they had planned, and he often seemed uneasy with his own stardom. He did all of it with a mastery of melody and genre-hopping fearlessness that made him a musical legend.

From the speedy Cold Spring Harbor to the soulful River of Dreams, here is The Best Song From Every Billy Joel Album.

Cold Spring Harbor (1971): “Everybody Loves You Now”

An unfortunate mastering error sped up Joel’s debut album and rendered most of it unlistenable (at least to him), but it still showed flashes of greatness. “Everybody Loves You Now” is one of the first in a long lineage of Joel songs about successful, desirable women who treat their admirers like dirt, if they even think about them at all. He offsets his acidic lyrics with a jaunty, percussive piano arrangement, an early example of the honey-and-vinegar duality that would make him one of rock’s most reliable (and reliably cynical) hitmakers.

Piano Man (1973): “Piano Man”

We tried to avoid the obvious choice here, but to award the best song on Piano Man to any song besides its title track would simply be disingenuous. Time and overexposure may have put “Piano Man” in “Stairway to Heaven” or “Free Bird” territory, but if you divorce the song from its cultural ubiquity, you’ll fall in love with Joel’s semi-autobiographical tale of his tenure as a Los Angeles lounge singer all over again. Joel was still working in singer-songwriter mode in 1973, and he unspools clever and heartrending details about his characters in each verse. The singalong chorus still works in isolation, but it’s an even bigger emotional payoff when you understand that these characters need this song, because its communal catharsis is the only temporary salve for their loneliness and unhappiness.

Streetlife Serenade (1974): “The Entertainer”

Joel never shied away from worst-case-scenario thinking, and he wasn’t afraid to bite the hand that fed him. He does both on Streetlife Serenade‘s lone single, “The Entertainer,” a cynical appraisal of the fickle music industry. The song’s titular protagonist knows he “won’t be here in another year if I don’t stay on the charts,” and the music industry vultures will callously pick the bones of his life’s work to make something palatable for radio. Yet Joel makes the most of these limitations, turning “The Entertainer” into a song that’s simultaneously conformist and biting satire. Fifty years later, it’s still a set list staple, proof that success is the best revenge.

Turnstiles (1976): “Prelude / Angry Young Man”

With its razor-sharp piano intro, pounding drums and taut guitar upstrokes, “Angry Young Man” is a feat of technical virtuosity, marking one of Joel’s hardest-rocking and most progressive songs. The lyrics paint a picture of a textbook “angry young man”: self-righteous, principled to a fault, more concerned with being right than being helpful, and boring as hell. At first, Joel seems to mock him, but when he shifts perspective in the bridge (“I believe I’ve passed the age / Of consciousness and righteous rage / I found that just surviving was a noble fight“), he empathizes with the man he once was. Considering Joel was only 27 when Turnstiles came out, he was either wise beyond his years or possessed remarkable foresight.

The Stranger (1977): “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant”

Turnstiles established Joel as a top-class songwriter, but The Stranger turned him into a blockbuster, generation-defining star. “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” a sweeping jazz-rock pocket symphony about doomed lovers Brenda and Eddie, is his masterpiece, and it belongs in the pantheon of all-time rock epics alongside “A Day in the Life,” “Good Vibrations” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” From elegant piano balladry to Dixieland jazz and back again, “Scenes” does what Joel’s best songs do: It plots the transition from starry-eyed youth to disenchanted adulthood, and it reminds listeners that even in the face of unexpected disappointment, life goes on, and so must they.

52nd Street (1978): “Zanzibar”

52nd Street was cut from the same jazz-rock cloth as The Stranger, but it sounded seedier and more cynical than its predecessor. Take “Zanzibar,” a sleazy, shapeshifting composition about a dejected barfly who’s trying to score with the waitress. Joel’s snarky delivery and the track’s various movements sound directly influenced by Steely Dan. You could also view “Zanzibar” as a Twilight Zone take on “Piano Man,” where the musical entertainment is replaced by fuzzy sports broadcasts and none of the patrons are proud of their status as regulars.

Glass Houses (1980): “You May Be Right”

Joel entered a new decade with a slightly harder, stripped-down sound, best represented on Glass Houses‘ lead single. “You May Be Right” succeeds primarily because of its irresistible hooks and melodies, but also because of Joel’s cocky, devil-may-care attitude and self-righteous sneer. Despite his multiple Grammy wins and multi-platinum albums, on “You May Be Right,” he sounds like a guy who’s chronically misunderstood and still has something to prove.

The Nylon Curtain (1982): “Where’s the Orchestra”

Joel ends his arguably most ambitious (and Beatlesque) album with this quietly devastating, McCartney-esque piano ballad about a man who attends the theater and is surprised to discover he’s watching a play instead of a musical. “Where’s the Orchestra” functions, on one level, as a rumination on life — Joel’s or any other — and how the achievements and destinations we romanticize rarely take the form we anticipate. It’s especially poignant coming from Joel, who’d accomplished all any musician could’ve hoped for by this point and still felt alone.

An Innocent Man (1983): “Uptown Girl”

If “Uptown Girl” remains a divisive Joel song more than 40 years after its release, it’s only because of the mass exposure that plagues so many gargantuan pop songs. The fact is, Joel’s riff on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is pure pop confection, featuring one of his most daunting lead vocals and positively ebullient backup harmonies. The lyrics paint a classic picture of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks pining after a girl way out of his league. It was the last time Joel could sell this type of song with any credibility, as he married supermodel Christie Brinkley after she starred in the video.

The Bridge (1986): “A Matter of Trust”

The Piano Man ditches his namesake instrument on The Bridge‘s second single (and its accompanying video) to powerful effect. With its heavy mid-tempo groove and simple, muscular riffs, “A Matter of Trust” could have come off as a barebones plodder. But its relative simplicity puts Joel’s sublime melodies front and center, and he delivers one of the album’s most impassioned vocal performances.

Storm Front (1989): “I Go to Extremes”

On Storm Front, Joel broke with longtime producer Phil Ramone and teamed up with Foreigner guitarist and producer Mick Jones. The Top 10 single “I Go to Extremes” rises to meet the album’s blustery arena-rock production. Joel’s thrumming piano complements the crunchy guitars and galloping drums, and the soaring chorus would have sounded right at home on Bon Jovi‘s New Jersey — and yes, that’s a compliment.

River of Dreams (1993): “All About Soul”

Joel’s final album of original pop-rock material carries a sense of sobering finality, even if he didn’t necessarily write it with his semi-retirement in mind. “All About Soul” is a powerful, gospel-tinged song about abiding love — what happens after the infatuation wears off and the honeymoon phase is over. Joel gives one of his strongest late-career vocal performances, and the extended fade-out reaches “Hey Jude” levels of emotional heft. Even as his recording career neared its end, Joel still performed with utmost conviction.