Greatest Hits Vols. 1 & 2 [Remaster] [ECD] - Joel, Billy (CD 1998)

One of my favorite Billy Joel albums has been his Greatest Hits: Volume I & Volume II. I was given the cassette version for my birthday in 1986 -- at one of my last really big birthday bashes when I reached the advanced age of 23. I played that cassette to death -- literally -- and it served as a morale booster when romances soured, deadlines loomed (I was a student journalist at the time) or went overseas to study Spanish in Seville, Spain.

Fortunately, shortly before that much-listened-to cassette went to the Big Walkman in the Sky I was given my first stereo system with a CD component, and one of my first purchases was this 2-disc set of 25 of Joel s most popular songs. Starting with 1973 s Piano Man and concluding with The Night is Still Young, this collection shows the many faces of Joel (the musician).

I was still new to the whole CD technology thing and had not really looked at the song list on the back cover, so there were quite a few surprises in store for me when I first played disc 1 on my CD player. I had, obviously, played the cassette so many times that I knew what songs would play and how long they were, so when I heard Piano Man fade out, I expected to hear Say Goodbye to Hollywood. Instead, I heard Captain Jack (a morbidly ironic ode to the decadence of the rich, spoiled and unhappy young men) and The Entertainer (a very upbeat yet ironic song about the lifestyle of a rock singer). I was also pleasantly surprised by the song-within-a-song of Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, with its reflective prologue and epilogue serving as musical bookends for what Joel calls The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie.

Another happy discovery was that disc 1 contains the complete rendition of Just The Way You Are, which on the cassette was truncated.

The second CD had fewer surprises, since the play list was almost identical to the cassette edition. The only differences were the inclusion of a live rendition of Joel s beautiful ballad She s Got A Way and a full rendition of Pressure. Other than that, all the songs I had memorized and sometimes sang along to ( Goodnight Saigon, Uptown Girl, For The Longest Time and Tell Her About It ) were where my ears and mind expected them to be.

This album has been re-released, tweaked and repackaged a few times. Not only have the two discs been included in the 4-CD Greatest Hits Limited Edition box set, but also they have been digitally remastered and placed in a smaller slimline jewel box (which I hate). The late 1990s re-issue boasts not only 24-bit digital remastering but also CD Extra videos designed to work with personal computers using Windows 95/98 or better operating systems.

If you are a dedicated Joel fan, you probably either own this or need no urging from me to purchase this album. But for new listeners who have yet to discover the many styles and moods of one of America s best pop/rock songwriter/performers, this set is definitely worth listening to. If the 4-disc box set is out of stock (as it sometimes is) or too expensive, buy this along with his 1997 Greatest Hits Volume III 1-disc album.