(2021) Billy Joel – Japanese Singles Collection : Greatest Hits          


Review:
The piano man is celebrating his 50th year as a solo artist with a variety of projects including the recent release of The Vinyl Collection Vol. 1 which reissued albums from his first decade. Over in Japan, the end of 2021 saw a new 2CD/DVD collection from Sony. Japanese Singles Collection: Greatest Hits follows previous releases in the series from artists such as Air Supply, Kenny Loggins, Boz Scaggs, and REO Speedwagon. The format and design are very similar for each title. The CDs (Blu-spec 2 discs, playable on all CD players) contain 39 A-sides as originally released in Japan plus a DVD of music videos – in Joel’s case, 42 videos and over three hours’ worth. Part of the fun of these sets is tracking the differences between the artist’s U.S. and Japan release trajectories. Whereas Joel’s solo career kicked off in America with “She’s Got a Way,” his first single release in Japan was “Piano Man.” That anthem opens the first disc of this collection. While it was released in 1973 in the U.S., the Japanese single didn’t arrive until 1975. Billy didn’t see another Japanese 45 until “Just the Way You Are,” one of three A-sides pulled from the singer-songwriter’s 1977 Phil Ramone-produced, Grammy-winning breakthrough The Stranger. The others were the title track and “She’s Always a Woman,” leaving U.S. A-sides “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” and “Only the Good Die Young” out in the cold (and absent from this collection). Stranger follow-up 52nd Street fared a bit better, mirroring the U.S. single releases of “My Life,” “Honesty,” and “Big Shot.” The Righteous Brothers-inspired “Until the Night” was selected as a fourth A-side in Japan. Joel tapped into the new wave sound for 1980’s Glass Houses, represented on the Japanese Singles Collection with another four songs: “You May Be Right,” “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” “Don’t Ask Me Why,” and one released as a B-side in America, “All for Leyna.” As in the U.S., the Phil Spector homage “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” was selected for a Japanese A-side off the live album Songs in the Attic but the live “She’s Got a Way” was overlooked in favor of the lesser-known “Los Angelenos.” Joel has long cited 1982’s The Nylon Curtain as among his proudest accomplishments, and the same, diverse trio of tunes was chosen for A-side release in both the U.S. and Japan: “Pressure,” “Allentown,” and “Goodnight Saigon.” 1983’s An Innocent Man was another triumph and remains Joel’s longest-charting studio album behind The Stranger, with 111 weeks on the Billboard 200. The album paid tribute to the artists and sounds that influenced Joel in his youth. Reflecting the artist’s ascension to international superstar status, a whopping seven singles were released in the U.S., all of which were also issued in Japan. Three went to the U.S. top ten: “Tell Her About It” (No. 1), “Uptown Girl” (No. 3), and the title track (No. 10). Joel cited Motown, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, and Ben E. King and The Drifters as inspirations for those three songs. Also released on 45 were the doo-wop homage “The Longest Time” (No. 14), “Keeping the Faith” (No. 18), the Beethoven-based “This Night,” and Burt Bacharach-meets-Smokey Robinson mélange “Leave a Tender Moment Alone” (No. 27). Joel based the latter, featuring the harmonica of Toots Thielemans, on the rhythm of such Bacharach songs as “What the World Needs Now Is Love.” While “Keeping the Faith” was issued in Japan (as well as at home) in a longer “Special Mix” with overdubs, the original LP version is heard here. Columbia (in the U.S.) and Sony (in Japan) largely continued to mirror each other’s releases for Joel with his subsequent albums although his cover of “The Times They Are A-Changin'” from the 1987 live album Kohuept was U.S.-only. Japanese Singles Collection features two singles from Greatest Hits Vols. 1 & 2 (“You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” and “The Night Is Still Young”), three from The Bridge (“Modern Woman,” “A Matter of Trust,” and “This Is the Time”) and “Back in the U.S.S.R.” from Kohuept. Joel parted ways with longtime producer Ramone for 1989’s Storm Front, producing it instead with Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones. Five songs hit the Hot 100 in the U.S., all five of which were singles in Japan, too: “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (No. 1), “I Go to Extremes” (No. 6), “And So It Goes” (No. 37), “The Downeaster Alexa” (No. 57), and “That’s Not Her Style” (No. 77). As of “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” Joel’s singles were issued on CD rather than vinyl in Japan. Billy Joel’s twelfth and final studio album to date, 1993’s River of Dreams, was helmed with guitarist Danny Kortchmar and yielded another major U.S. hit with the title track (No. 3 Pop/No. 1 AC) as well as “All About Soul” (No. 29 Pop). The third and final single, concluding the CD portion of Japanese Singles Collection, is the tender “Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel).”





Track List:

CD 1:
1.Piano Man
2.Just the Way You Are
3.The Stranger
4.She’s Always a Woman
5.My Life
6.Honesty
7.Big Shot
8.Until the Night
9.You May Be Right
10.It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me
11.Don’t Ask Me Why
12.All for Leyna
13.Say Goodbye to Hollywood
14.Los Angelenos
15.Pressure
Allentown
16.Goodnight Saigon
17.Tell Her About It
18.This Night
19.Uptown Girl

CD 2:
1.An Innocent Man
2.The Longest Time
3.Leave a Tender Moment Alone
4.Keeping the Faith
5.You're Only Human (Second Wind)
6.The Night Is Still Young
7.Modern Woman
8.A Matter of Trust
9.This Is the Time
10.Baby Grand (feat. Ray Charles)
11.Back in the U.S.S.R.
12.We Didn’t Start the Fire
13.I Go to Extremes
14.The Downeaster “Alexa”
15.That’s Not Her Style
16.And So It Goes
17.The River of Dreams
18.All About Soul
19.Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)


[/b]Media Report:
Genre: singer-songwriter, soft rock
Country: USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits


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