CoronaVinyl Day 112 (RS Greatest Albums 351-400): 52nd Street by Billy Joel

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Today, we are looking at albums ranked between 351 and 400 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time.  Coming it at #354 is Billy Joel's sixth studio album, 1978's 52nd Street.

The album built off the success Joel had experienced with his prior album, The Stranger, which reached #2 on the Billboard album chart and would eventually be certified diamond by the RIAA.  52nd Street was Joel's first #1 album on the Billboard album chart and was the second in a string of eight consecutive studio albums that reached the Top 10.  The album also went to the Top 10 on the album charts in several other countries, including #1 in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.  It would go on to with the Grammy for Album of the Year.

52nd Street featured three songs that reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100:  "My Life" (#3, tying "Just The Way You Are" for his highest-charting single to that point), "Big Shot" (#14), and "Honesty" (#24).

Favorite song from Side 1:  "My Life"

This is catchy pop song, with Chicago lead singer Peter Cetera providing backing vocals.  I almost feel like it could be the theme song to an '80s sitcom where two men have to dress up as women to live in an all-female apartment building in New York because it's the only place they can afford.  One of the men will be played by a guy who will go on to win Academy Awards and become one of the most-loved actors of his generation, and the other will be played by a guy who will one day play a closeted Midwestern father of a free-spirited twentysomething aspiring writer who lives in New York and has adventures with her female friends.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Half a Mile Away"
"Half a Mile Away" is about a guy escaping his actual life by going "just a half a mile away" -- which in a city like New York, may as well be ten miles -- where he gets drunk and listens to music in his other world.