Customer Reviews

Piano Man: Very Best of

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Nice one-disc Billy Joel import, notable mainly for using the 4:33 single version of "Piano Man" -- first time on CD. It also uses the edit versions of "My Life," "We Didn't Start the Fire," "Tell Her About It," "All About Soul," and "Just the Way You Are."

Collectors may want those hard-to-find single edits, and the disc is a good choice for beginners, but the more comprehensive "Essential Billy Joel" can be got for around the same price.

If, like me, you already own Billy Joel's Greatest Hits 1,2 and 3, you don't really NEED this album, even though you might WANT it anyway.

If you just want to have a collection of his best songs in one compact package for the car or office, this is perfect for you.

It's got all the songs you sang and danced to over the years, including "Just The Way You Are"; "Honesty"; "My Life"; "Uptown Girl"; "An Innocent Man"; and "Movin' Out" et al.

An excellent "Beginner's Guide to Billy" for someone on your gift list.

Amanda Richards, December 14, 2004

This is a great album. Greatest hits 1 and 2 and the Essential 2 disc collection give us the unedited, full-length version of all the songs, which is really nice. However, it is nice to hear the edits for a change, and this album gives them to us: the shorter version of Piano Man, taking out about a verse and a half, and the shorter version of All About Soul gives us the great guitar work that is not in the original recording. I also like the version of My Life, its a little more rocking and moving without the high piano notes coming in until the very end and fewer piano measures between the verses. My favorite Billy Joel edited song, however, is I Go To Extremes. When i was a kid and the song came out on the radio, it pretty much had the first rocking piano solo, followed by 2 lines of singing, then the second piano solo (which rocks even more). At the end of the second solo, it goes back to Billy singing and the song fading out. I have tried to find this everywhere to get onto my ipod along with the great original recording and have been unable to find it anywhere. I figured when this album came out and I read about the edited versions that I Go To Extremes would defintiely be on there. It isn't :( But the rest of the album is great stuff :)

I was very impressed with the audio quality of this CD given the age of the material. It was truly remastered!

I notice other reviews of this CD complaining about "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" being omitted from the track list. Guess we are lucky in New Zealand as the version of the CD in our part of the world drops "Don't Ask Me Why" (which I already have on greatest hits CD) and "Scandanavian Skies" (can't say I know that track) for the full just over 7 minute version of that track (let's face it - that song could not be edited!!).

There are always going to be songs we think are missing on a single disc collection for artists who have been around forever e.g. in my case I love "Pressure" but that's again on the greatest hits. This collection also has "Honesty" which was missing from our version of greatest hits and that track is fantastic alone. So, in summary although I already have Greatest Hits 1, 2 and 3 this is a nice little overview and as others have said gives us the rare edits of some tracks.

As a bonus our version also comes with a DVD which has clips for:
Tell Her About It
Uptown Girl
Piano Man (live) - so that gives us the full version
New York State Of Mind (live)
The River Of Dreams
It's Still Rock And Roll To Me
We Didn't Start The Fire
Goodnight Saigon (live)
My Life
All About Soul (live)

And finally, having just found this for $8.99 NZD at one of our local CD stores makes this a bargain indeed!!!


As a bonus w

I love this CD, but then what is not to love about the musical genius of Billy Joel? This is a very good selection of some of his best songs.

The Very best hit for Billy Joel is "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant"
How can a collection of hits with such a title exist without that song? Stange!

Good album. BUT THE RECORD COMPANY needs to drop the no hit songs ( Scandnauvin skies, and Goodnight saigon ).....and replace them with AMERICAN FAVORITE HITS ( that's missing ). SUCH songs as " YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT, BIG SHOT "..............BOTH WHERE REALLY POPULAR HITS in AMERICA.....and STUCK IN YOUR HEAD BIG TIME. The company, or billy joel, need to release a SINGLE USA HIT SINGLE DISK.......really soon.

Songs like MATTER OF TRUST, and ALLENTOWN.......would be much better then INNOCENT MAN and SCANDIVIAN SKIES. REALLY, those picks are much better. STILL A GOOD but deserves to be BETTER hits album.WHY is this album an IMPORT ??? You wouild think an AMERICAN single hits CD would BE MADE ( By now ). Like the other reviewer said. I agree....go AMERICAN ...BILLY JOEL.

Looking over the track listing, we have all the Joel classics here... "Piano Man"... "Just The Way You Are"... "We Didn't Start The Fire"... "She's Got A Way" and of course, "Scandinavian Skies". Huh? Don't remember that one? Dig out your copy of Nylon Curtain. If you're putting together the Joel staples on one CD, I highly doubt that sits on top of the pile of essential songs. But aside from the obvious choices that could go in place of "Scandinavian Skies", it has a nice selection of songs for the casual listener. But of course, the casual listener would be better off dropping the extra money for the Greatest Hits 1-3 Box. Overall, 4 stars on the weight of the songs included, not on the ones they didn't.