Songs In The Attic

I did it again.. I went back to Real Groovy. I walked straight in, straight to the LP section, straight to J and dived into the Billy Joel records. It was Friday; it had been a long week, several long nights and a lot of work (for once; I had just had a mock-trial for my Law class which went really well and I was feeling very good about everything. Pretty good for Friday the 13th! In fact, on my way to the store, about 6 girls in black cat costumes ran past me. Not only that, they crossed my path. I didn't even think twice of it till afterwards!

My Existing Collection

Anyway, back to the records. As you may have read before, I already had 6 of them... But there was one in particular that I didn't have that I particularly wanted, Songs In The Attic. This is an incredible album because it is a collection of some of Billy Joel's best early pieces recorded live in 1980.  The venues ranged from a 300 seat club to the enormous reverberations of Madison Square Garden. On this album are two of the most amazing live songs you are likely to hear: Miami 2017 and Captain Jack. Hearing the reactions of the crowds to these amazing songs really makes the hair on your neck stand up. Very cool. I would seriously recommend it to anyone; if you don't like Billy Joel yet, you will after this!

I was very lucky to find a brand new copy of it- still in the original wrapping- which was at a second-hand price! This album more than any other has extensive notes on its production, as well as a number of photos of a Billy from his childhood to present. It was a fantastic buy and a real bargain. I then found another great album of his, An Innocent Man; each song on this album is a tribute to a different artist who influenced Billy in his youth. Ranging from Doo Wop to Motown, to Bob Marley, the album throws up some classics like The Longest Time and Uptown Girl. It also lead to the filming of what is probably the cringe-worthy music video of all time, Keeping The Faith. It's a good song, but that video is just.. *cringe*

So Worth It!

Aaaand while I was at it, I decided to get the only early album of his I hadn't yet got, Streetlife Serenade. While not as good as some of his others, it is still an excellent album and has many of his songs from his balladeer period. Fortunately for my bank account, I stopped at three. There are more there, but for now I have enough. I just don't have enough space for them all at the moment! Hopefully when I move house, I'll have somewhere to display them all. For now I'll just have to rotate them around! 

Stay tuned, I bought a membership card for Real Groovy so this won't be the last of it!

Q.E.D.