Billy Joel’s Streetlife Serenade released

First posted 5/9/2011; updated 9/21/2020.

Streetlife Serenade Billy Joel

Released: October 11, 1974 Peak: 35 US, -- UK, 16 CN, 85 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, -- UK, 1.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop/rock singer-songwriter

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Streetlife Serenader Los Angelenos The Great Suburban Showdown Root Beer Rag (instrumental) Roberta The Entertainer (11/30/74, 34 US, 13 CL, 30 AC, 30 CN, 89 AU) Last of the Big Time Spenders Weekend Song Souvenir The Mexican Connection (instrumental) Total Running Time: 37:41

Rating: 3.403 out of 5.00 (average of 8 ratings)

About the Album: With his sophomore album, Billy Joel had achieved success with “Piano Man,” but it threw him. Billy Joel was driven “to deliver an album that established him as both a serious artist and a commercial contender.” AMG While critics didn’t love him, his sophomore album had delivered big with the top-25 success of “Piano Man.” Now he needed to quickly release another album to maintain a high profile, but he’d used his best stuff on Piano Man, so he was short on material. The resulting third album, Streetlife Serenade, was, therefore, “a bit of a slump.” AMG Still, “since he has skills, he's able to turn out a few winners – Roberta, a love song in the vein of Cold Spring Harbor, the mournful Streetlife Serenader, and the stomping” AMG and “vigorous Los Angelenos,” DB on which he “rocked an electric piano.” DB “Joel is attempting a grand Americana lyrical vision, stretching from the Wild West through the Depression on ‘Los Angelenos’ and The Great Suburban Showdown.” AMG “Joel’s ruminations on suburban malaise…are at their most overblown.” DB In the end, “it doesn't work, not only because of his shortcomings as a writer, but because he didn't have the time to pull it all together.” AMG “The presence of two instrumentals screamed, ‘Right – I didn’t have time to write songs for my new album.’” DB “Even if Root Beer Rag, yet another sign of The Sting’s influence, is admittedly enjoyable, they're undeniably fillers.” AMG Stylistically, it was a reiteration of its predecessor’s” AMG obsession with Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection, “spiked with, of all things, Rockford Files synthesizers and ragtime pulled from The Sting.” AMG “It’s no coincidence that the record’s single and best song, The Entertainer, shares a title with the Scott Joplin rag that provided The Sting with a main theme.” AMG On that “astonishingly bitter” AMG song, “he not only disparages his own role, but is filled with venom over ‘Piano Man’ being released in a single edit, that made the subtext clear: he’d had enough with California, enough with the music industry, enough with being a sensitive singer/songwriter. It was time for Billy to say goodbye to Hollywood and head back home to New York.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: Billy Joel’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine DB David Browne (6/07). Blender magazine. Pages 114-5.