I’ve been listening repeatedly this week to what I think is Billy Joel’s best album, Turnstiles. I know this may not be the consensus view — most would probably go with The Stranger or Piano Man — but the thing that strikes me about Turnstiles is both its consistency and the fact that this consistency occurs at an extremely high level.
Its eight songs veer from the kind of pop love songs that could have been hits in a different era to political statements and the tension in the studio during the recording seems to have upped the ante in a way that benefited the final product. Eight great songs. Eight great performances, culminating with the angry, pointed political epic “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway).” It is a leap forward from the good, but flawed, Streetlife Serenade, while also offering everything that The Stranger and 52nd Street offered.
Steven Thomas Erlewine on Allmusic.com described the album like this:
There’s little question that the cinematic sprawl of Born to Run had an effect on Turnstiles, since it has a similar widescreen feel, even if it clocks in at only eight songs. The key to the record’s success is variety, the way the album whips from the bouncy, McCartney-esque “All You Wanna Do Is Dance” to the saloon song “New York State of Mind”; the way the bitterly cynical “Angry Young Man” gives way to the beautiful “I’ve Loved These Days” and the surrealistic apocalyptic fantasy “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway).” No matter how much stylistic ground Joel covers, he’s kept on track by his backing group. He fought to have his touring band support him on Turnstiles, going to the lengths of firing his original producer, and it was clearly the right move, since they lend the album a cohesive feel.
It is, as Erlewine says, Joel’s most satisfying album — a precursor to the smash hits to come that captures Joel at his best and powerful.
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Hank Kalet 