The Stranger

Released on September 29, 1977, The Stranger was Billy Joel's fifth studio album and the record that saved his career. Before its release, Joel was close to being dropped by Columbia Records; his previous album, Turnstiles, had peaked outside the Billboard Top 100. Everything was riding on this record.

Produced by Phil Ramone, who would go on to collaborate with Joel on his next five albums, The Stranger was recorded over approximately three weeks in the summer of 1977. It was the first Joel album to feature his touring band in the studio: drummer Liberty DeVitto, bassist Doug Stegmeyer, and multi-instrumentalist Richie Cannata. The result was a live, energetic feel that had eluded his earlier studio work.

The album is loosely unified around the theme of the persona people present to the world versus who they are underneath. Songs examine characters who are tough on the outside and vulnerable within, women misread by those around them, and the collision between ambition and identity. A whistled melody recurs across the album as a kind of motif, giving it a cinematic coherence.

Commercially, The Stranger was a phenomenon. It spent six years on the Billboard charts, was eventually certified 10x platinum in the United States, and produced four Top 25 singles: "Just the Way You Are," "Movin' Out (Anthony's Story)," "Only the Good Die Young," and "She's Always a Woman." Rolling Stone later included it on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.