Streetlife Serenade

❤️

One of favorite Billy Joel albums, but iTunes, get it together, it's the Root Beer Rag, not the Root Beer Bag.

This is a fabulous album. While it is not the origin of any of Billy’s show-stoppingly famous songs, (with the possible exception of “The Entertainer”), I believe that because of its mixture of solemnity and rollicking upbeat sounds the album as a complete package is a masterful work of art. Definitely worth it to get the whole album to experience all of the pieces and the moods and stories they convey together. Five stars all the way.

What can I say about this incredible album? It's by far my favorite of Billy's, and my favorite album of ANYONES. His talent is hardly matched by anyone- come on, he wrote these songs at TWENTY FIVE!! His voice is beautiful and full of soul. He really pours everything into his music, and you can see the quality of it. The songs have emotion! Roberta is melancholy, Los Angelenos is.. I Can't even descibe it :) The Great Suburban Showdown is my favorite song he ever wrote and its lovely, Root Beer RAG is increibly composed and wonderfully played, The Entertainer is fun to listen to (if you do listen to it, he complains about radio stations shortening Piano Man to three minutes and five seconds), Last of The Big Time Spenders is sweet and pretty, Souvenir is short but but very nice, and The Mexican Connection is absoluelty INCREDIBLE. The amount of work he spent on that song is clearly obvious, with all the complex melodies and harmonis and his beautiful piano playing. There are so many instruments used that all beland into each other perfectly... it trruly is a masterpiece of a song, :D Amazing, stupenous, wonderful, beautiful, spectacular work by my favorite musican!!!

What an amazing talent. He did this at 25 years old!

I've listened to this album during my formative years, 18 to 25 and have enjoyed it every time I broke it out to listen to it. I finally went back in search of it in iTunes, and was way pleased to find it. Nice job Apple. In this album are some of the most memorable songs in existence. They hit at the heart of what makes a life real to a person. Streetlife Seranader starts us off with a singers dreams, mostly made up of hard times; we see how hard it is to go back home in the Showdown...questions of life abound. This is his true artist's album, and after this we hear the more polished, and slightly commercial music that Billy Joel did after this album. I cannot forget Roberta, and maybe you'll be singing some of the tunes in the years to come. A great Billy Joel album. Maybe his best. I say, Enjoy it. Harley

root beer rag live....wow and besides all those reviews when it came out. i dont download much music when it has to be paid for but.....if you have $10 you should download 10 copies of just that song...i mean, am i right? best BJ album. and underrated to the point of nausea. amen.

STREETLIFE SERENADE is one of my favorite Billy Joel albums because it's a great showcase of his keyboard work. Back in the early 70s, before music was burdened by electronics, most progressive musicians, such as Billy, primarily used acoustic piano (Streetlife Serenade), electric piano (Los Angelenos), organ (Weekend Song) and moog synthesizer (Great Suburban Showdown, The Entertainer, Mexican Connection, Root Beer Rag). Beyond the excellent keyboards, this is a great collection of early songs. Many people overlook this album, but it's all classic 70s Billy Joel.

This is a fantastic album especially Streetlife Serenader, but iTunes messed up Root Beer RAG not BAG, RAG!

Last of the Big Time Spenders is one of his all time greats-album makes it to 4 stars just for this one.