In 1977 Billy Joel released the album “The Stranger” to massive public and critical acclaim. The following year, Joel realized he had to do something different for his next album, so he decided to hire jazz musicians for his new record to give it a different feel from anything he had previously made. “52nd Street” is named after a street in New York City famous for the vast amount of jazz culture that occurred on that street. Joel has a lot of history on 52nd street as both his record company as well as the studio he records in are located on 52nd street.

            The album starts off loud with an extremely catchy bombastic jazz rock song “Big Shot.” “Big Shot” immediately sets the mood for the album by going all in on the jazzy feel. “Big Shot” is supposed to represent how Joel felt after the success of his previous album. It features lyrics almost resenting himself for his cocky behavior. This track is ridiculously catchy, partly due to its absolutely insane replay value. The next track “Honesty” is a slow tragic ballad about Joel not being able to trust anybody. The track slowly ramps up in speed as Joel is seemingly swept up in emotion, which gives the track a very raw feeling. This culminates in the track being one of this album’s best.

            The next track is by far the album’s biggest single. “My life” is all about Joel wanting to live as he chooses. The lyrics in the chorus especially emphasizes this “I don’t care what you say anymore, this is my life. Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone.” The track is rather simple musically, but I think that it works in the tracks favor; its simplicity makes it all the more memorable. Zanzibar is the next track on the album, “Zanzibar” has an addictive flow that gets stuck in my head for hours. Its off kilter piano riff gives the song an almost intoxicated feel, which makes the song all the more catchy. 

            One of the biggest flaws of “52nd Street” is that rather than putting the albums best songs periodically throughout the album, the best songs are all in a row at the beginning. This makes for an amazing first half of the album, and then a sudden drop in quality. The second half of the album is significantly weaker than the first half, which messes up the flow of the album. The album also finishes really weakly with the self-titled track “52nd Street” which doesn’t even have Billy Joel on it. Despite this, the final track shows off Joel inspirations more than any other track, as it is by far the jazziest track. 

Production: 9/10

The production for this album is incredibly raw feeling, and it works masterfully in this album’s favor.

Lyrics: 9/10

Throughout the album Joel uses his lyrics for storytelling very effectively 

Vocals: 9.5/10

 Joel’s vocals are simply incredible through the whole album.

Instrumentals: 9.5/10 

Joel’s band “The Lords of 52nd Street” compliment Joel’s vocals almost perfectly.

Theming: 9/10

As the album is named after a famous jazz center, the album maintains a very jazzy feel very well.

Consistency:7.5/10

The latter half of the album really hurts the album’s consistency as it is lower in quality than the first half.

Length:10/10

“52nd Street” is 40 minutes long which to me is the perfect length of an album as I won’t lose focus, and it isn’t so short that I’m disappointed.

Replay Value: 8.5/10

The reply value on this album is very good, but the track “Rosalinda’s Eyes” as well as the final track pulls it down as I get sick of those two tracks in particular rather quickly.

Enjoyment: 9/10

The first listen of this album is incredible right up until the final track where you are honestly kind of disappointed by its ending.

Creativity: 7/10 

Although the album is different from the rest of Joel’s discography, it wasn’t a particularly groundbreaking album.