Greatest Hits Vol. 3 - Joel, Billy (CD 1997)

If I could give 3 and a half stars I would, but out of loyalty and respect to Billy Joel, I'll round up rather than down. There is, after all, some great music on this album- "Leningrad", "We Didn't Start the Fire", "And So It Goes", "All About Soul", "Lullabye", and "The River of Dreams". I wish Joel were still young and thus qualified to be a player in modern pop, because his "pop" from the '70s and '80s was infinitely better than most of the crap on the pop charts these days. But now he'd only be viewed as an old has-been, permanently banished to the world of Adult Contemporary music. Hopefully he only goes there kicking and screaming.

Although some of these songs are tender and mellow, they aren't the fake, insincere, by-the-book love songs that dominate the AC genre. It's an affront to Billy Joel to label a song like "And So It Goes" as Adult Contemporary, because the emotion and pain is real and palpable. And real emotions don't digest quite so well as "easy listening".

The big problem with this album is the three cover songs thrown in at the end. They're not necessarily bad songs, but putting them at the end of Billy Joel's career retrospective seems rather anti-climactic. It looks suspicious, like the record company said that 14 tracks weren't enough, so Billy promptly tossed them some filler. What's furthermore, he could've gone for some more adventurous choices of songs to cover.

Other than that, this album is a nice summary of the end of Billy Joel's pop career. You can already see him moving toward classical music on "Lullabye", and that should be respected. But if you really want to appreciate the spirit of Joel's music and his power as an entertainer, you should watch his episode of VH1's "Storytellers". It's disappointing that Joel didn't do more to convey those things on this album. He's a star, he has power to do what he wants. He could've at least thrown out a few new songs with the "hits" instead of those covers. This album of hits, semi-hits, and coves is musically good, but as a career move, it seems to be the path of least resistance. Billy really should fight harder against those trying to pigeonhole him as an artistically irrelevent "Adult Contemporary" artist.