Billy Joel-The Stranger (1977)
Artist: Billy Joel
Title: The Stranger
Year of Release: 1977
Country and Year of Edition: US 1977
Sell Price: $5.15
Sell Date: 3/29/26
Condition: VG/G
Discogs Last Sold: 11/26/25 VG+/no cover $5.00
Low: $1.50
Median: $4.95
Average: $4.48
High: $8.99
Current low price: $1.99 VG/VG
Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 10
Have/Want: 164/189
Where Sold: Fort Worth, TX
Time It Took To Sell: 2 years
Where and When Bo ught: Ebay lot
Gwiz-gau Grade: A
Sad To See It Go: No
I just had a sale of 16 8-tracks in the 3-5 dollar range sell. Nice sale! Makes me want to finally alphabetize the thousand or so tapes I accumulated in lot fashion in the last couple years. This order may force my hand. Anyway, some of the titles I've written about in other formats but at this point I have something to write about every day for a couple weeks even if I don't have time to play the actual tape before they ship, I can always make a Spotify playlist with the format track order even if I miss out on the fades.
For whatever reason, of the 16 tapes the one I had an urge to hear the most was one of the first albums I got as a kid that was outside my parents taste orbit, The Stranger by Billy Joel. I got it in real time, I'm guessing for my 8th birthday in May of '78 or possibly the Christmas before. So my initial ownership of The Stranger was when it was his latest album. 52nd Street came out in the Fall of '78, and that also sold in this order. I got that one also, but that is for a later write up.
So what of the album whose AM hits I have overheard to point of unlistenability, whose rock hits I still know cold and whose deepest tracks are all familiar by recall? I already had a nostalgia listen to it when I got one of several 8-track copies recently. The track reordering starts interestingly, kicking off with the whistle of the title track. Instead of the whistling reprise closing the album, it is added at the end of the song. Next up is the endlessly overheard "Just The Way You Are," which I also had on the FM Soundtrack. I never really honed in on the reverb of the Fender Rhodes the way I did today, but that is what makes the song.
Track two opens with the vinyl opener, every kids favorite, "Movin' Out." You should never argue with a crazy ma-ma-ma-ma! "Mr. Caccitori's down on Sullivan Street, across from the medical center" might be one of the most memorable places to grace a pop lyric. "Vienna" was a better ballad, less heard and therefore easier to rehear. After that the other megahits I never want to hear "She's Always A Woman" and "Only The Good Die Young," The other "best song" gets the 8-track fade. Bottle of red. Bottle of white. Scenes From An I-talian Restaurant. Track 4 closes the way the album does without the reprise, just "Get It Right The First Time" and "Everybody Has A Dream."
A record pointless to deny it's influence on me, even if I ever tried.
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