I sat at home this Thanksgiving break looking through photo albums. There’s that one baby picture of me and my sauce-covered face trying oh-so-hard to eat spaghetti and the one of me on the first day of kindergarten wearing some ridiculous outfit I have yet to forgive my mom for dressing me in.
And then I stumbled across one of me jumping on a bed playing air guitar and singing. I only needed to take one glance at me wearing those cheap, Bar Mitzvah sunglasses when I remembered immediately what I was rocking out to: “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” We all love that song, not necessarily for the words or the music, but because we all spent so many years of our lives singing it until we could tell our friends, “Yeah, I know all the words to that one.”
And when piano-rock pioneer Billy Joel left the rock music scene in the early ’90s, I was nearly devastated. Since then, all we’ve heard from Joel has been a myriad of greatest hits discs and his classical pieces arranged under his full name, William Joel.
Much to my relief, I stumbled across My Lives, a retrospective chronicling a brilliant career from Piano Man in 1973 all the way to River of Dreams 20 years later.
The four-CD and one-DVD collection features live, unreleased versions of some of his most well-known works such as “Captain Jack” and “I Go To Extremes.” The box set also includes alternate recordings of songs such as “River of Dreams” and “Getting Closer” as well as demo versions of tracks such as “Piano Man.”
Also thrown into the set are the album versions of some of Joel’s career highlight tunes, including “It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me,” “Elvis Presley Boulevard” and “Big Shot.” There is no remastering and nothing new here; it’s just a thoughtful collection of Joel’s best – not necessarily most popular – pieces.
The highlights of this release include Joel’s versions of “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Shout,” a live recording of the high-energy “You May Be Right” – a duet with the other piano-mastermind, Elton John – and Joel’s duet with Ray Charles, “Baby Grand.”
For the avid Billy Joel fan, inserting disc 5, the DVD, into your PC brings about the most interesting feature of all, called UMIXIT. Fans can add loops, vocals or even create their own mashup or remix to “Zanzibar” and “I Go To Extremes.” It’s a feature you might only use once or twice but is a very unique added bonus.
Forget those greatest hits albums your dad has lying around; this is the essential Billy Joel collection. Between the previously unreleased material and alternate recordings, My Lives is the perfect way to recap an amazing career.
– By Michael Barnett
