Billy Joel - The Stranger: 30th Anniversary [Limited Edition] (Deluxe Boxed Set - 2 CDs + 1 DVD)
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Free Music Notes for The Stranger: 30th Anniversary [Limited Edition] (Deluxe Boxed Set - 2 CDs + 1 DVD)
Free Music Review: Billy Joel at his best.
Hit: 4 Stars
The Stranger is Billy Joels best album. The live CD of him at Carnegie Hall sounds excellent. Hearling Billy and his band perform songs from the Stranger before it was released is amazing. The DVD of Billy in concert in his prime is great, although I wished there was more songs included. I really enjoyed hearing Billy and Phil Ramone discussing how the Stranger came about and the stories behind the classic songs.Free Music Review: Billy Joel 30th Anniversary of The Stranger Album
Hit: 4 Stars
This special 3oth Anniversary rerelease of Billy Joel's The Stranger Album will bring back a tidal wave of great growing up memories of the late 70's.Free Music Review: Awesome set!
Hit: 4 Stars
I am a huge Billy Joel fan! The best part of this set is the DVD! If you are a big fan like me, you will love it.Free Music Review: Terrible remaster of original album; great live show unnecessarily edited
Hit: 3 Stars
OK, first things first: The Stranger is the album that made Billy Joel a household name throughout the world (though not because it was a breakthrough album in terms of content; the earlier "Turnstiles" is at least as good). It is a very well recorded album with many of Joel's best loved songs. It has been reissued multiple times in the digital era (the original CD, the remastered CD, the SACD version, etc.). It is hard to imagine anyone interested in this expensive expansive edition doesn't already own AT LEAST one other digital version of the album, so the inclusion of the album on this package is a money grab.
Unfortunately, it's worse than that: The remaster of The Stranger included here is far-and-away the WORST remaster of the album to ever appear. It is extremely compressed and maximized, which means it sound nice and LOUD, but it sacrifices all sorts of subtleties of the music itself. If you are only interested in The Stranger, go and buy yourself any other edition. Or if you already own The Stranger in some other digital edition, keep that if you buy this: The version here is just plain junk.
Now, on to the bonus features which, honestly, are the lure of this package. On the second CD (there is no "third" CD, regardless of how Amazon describes this package) you get a TRUNCATED version of the shows that Billy Joel played in New York City in Summer 1977. This was Joel and his band at the height of their powers, and with a trunkload of great material (from the Stranger and earlier albums) to draw upon. To any fan of Billy Joel, this is essential, terrific stuff. UNFORTUNATELY, you don't get an entire show (neither a real entire show, nor a cut-and-paste from separate performances to simulate an entire show). This is a real travesty and begs the question "Why?" The source material to offer a full show is available. Someone made the decision to offer the abridged version here, and, given the relatively high cost of this package and that fact that a full show from era of Joel's career is not legitimately available anywhere is just criminal. What's here is excellent, but it's just not enough.
As for the DVD: You get an hour long show originally recorded for the UK's Old Grey Whistle Test. Again, it's excellent, but does not represent a full show of the era (even if an hour is all that Joel and his band recorded for that fixed format show). There's also a documentary and a bit of other ephemera that's nice, but won't merit repeat viewings in most households.
In all, this is an opportunity missed. A poor remaster of the original album coupled with a tantalizing but unsatisfying abbreviated version of a classic era show. Bad decisions were made here and--sadly--I'd guess there won't be a another physical media attempt to correct them in the future.
Hardcore Joel fans will buy this, as well they should (what legitimate alternatives are there for the live material?) But anyone on the fence should think hard before jumping.
Free Music Review: The Record Industry will never get it.
Hit: 3 Stars
Overall I'm happy with my purchase but in the end all I got was a very expensive dvd that wasn't even remastered in Dolby Digital and a partial live show from Carnegie Hall. Lets start the review off with the remaster of the original album. It's one of the worst remasters ever and I'm very disappointed. I find myself constantly twitching in anticipation of having to continually turn the volume down because the audio hits saturation on a continual basis. It's almost as if the engineer either forgot to compress the soundwave before adding amplitude or this was someones first attempt at remastering a cd. Either way I'm very happy that I own the SACD as it is simply perfection. Next up is the Carnegie Hall concert. This show is very good especially since it has the mini orchestra which adds a uniqueness to owning it and The sound is also very good, but the downfall lies in the fact that they cut about 10 songs from the original show, probably because they didn't want to make the box set larger than it already is. Next they have the audacity to include 5 songs from the Nassau 77 show (purchased at best buy) when in fact the masters for the entire 24 song show is available and has been in circulation as a bootleg for many years. Even if you add the four tracks from Nassau that aren't on the Carnegie Hall show the concert is still not complete. Any Serious Billy Joel fan already owns a high quality bootleg of the Nassau 77 show, so only mastering 5 tracks adds insult to injury. Finally I get to the DVD. Surely they couldn't screw this up. Wrong!! No Dobly Digital??? Just Stereo??? It's still a great DVD but it would have been awesome in 5.1. Take a listen to the Springsteen '75 show that was released in 5.1 several years ago and you will know exactly what is lacking in this stereo only show. How would I done it differently if I was Columbia Records? 1. The remastered album should have been offered as a hybrid SACD or DVD audio that would play on both a conventional CD player or in 5.1 on a SACD\DVD player and packaged as a mini LP with all the original artwork. 2. The Carnegie Hall show should have been the complete show which would have been 2 discs and packaged as a mini LP. Who wants to store their discs in the plastic sleeve of the long box? 3. The DVD should have been mastered in Dolby Digital 5.1. It's 2008 for christ's sake. They should have included the 5 tracks from Nassau 1977 in all the boxes and then offered the remaining tracks from the full show as a download for an additional $8-$10. Other than the replica of Billy Joel's lyric book there was absolutely no creativity or imagination put into this box which is a real shame. Maybe the record labels should ask what the fans would like to see in an anniversary box, similar to what Ford did when they reissued the Mustang. In that case everyone was a winner. In the case of the 30th Anniversary of the Stranger most people will walk away knowing they could have had more but got less.