The Album That Saved Billy Joel
“The Stranger”: The Album That Saved Billy Joel’s Career (and His Hairline)
Let’s rewind to Late September 1977: Disco ruled the airwaves, punk was snarling in the gutters and Billy Joel? The “Piano Man” was one bomb away from being dropped by his label. That’s right, before The Stranger dropped, Joel was circling the drain, creatively and commercially. But then? Boom! He didn’t just knock on the door of success, he kicked it down in a three-piece suit.
The Stranger wasn’t just big, it was seismic. We’re talking over 10 million copies sold in the U.S. alone, making it Columbia Records’ best-selling release at the time. It spawned four Top 40 singles: “Movin’ Out,” “Just the Way You Are,” “Only the Good Die Young,” and “She’s Always a Woman.” All killer, no filler. Joel went from an East Coast also-ran to a household name with Grammys in one hand and a bottle of red (or white) in the other.
Here’s the wild part, the album almost didn’t happen. Columbia was this close to dropping him. Three previous albums had floundered commercially and Joel’s sound wasn’t exactly trending in a post-Zeppelin, pre-MTV world. So, what changed?
Enter producer Phil Ramone, a behind-the-scenes wizard who got Joel to drop the overproduction and just sound like himself. They recorded The Stranger in just three weeks, with Joel’s live band instead of hired studio guns. The result? Raw, honest and pure New York grit.
So what if The Stranger flopped? Let’s be real, Billy Joel’s career would’ve been toast. No Glass Houses, no 52nd Street, no Uptown Girl, no sold-out Madison Square Garden residencies. He’d probably be teaching piano on Long Island and telling students, “Yeah, I had a couple records back in the day.” Tragic.
Instead, The Stranger launched Joel into the stratosphere. It gave us an everyman icon in an era of glam and glitter. It made piano cool again and it proved you didn’t need spandex or a falsetto to top the charts, just storytelling, soul and a Bronx-born chip on your shoulder.
So pour yourself something stiff, drop the needle and remember: without The Stranger, Billy Joel might’ve been just another forgotten name in a dusty crate at your local record shop.
