Back in 1985, Billy Joel had established himself as one of the world's premier musicians. At the time, he had a 14 year career spanning 10 studio albums behind him. This made him long overdue for a greatest hits album. So, the release of
Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Volume I and Volume II was a blind buy for me at the time. In fact, I believe it was the first CD that I spent my hard earned money on. What lies underneath the cover of this compilation is a masterpiece of music that, if I were so inclined, would make the perfect Billy Joel mix tape. While the focus of this compilation is somewhat heavy on Joel's "top hits", there's also a good sprinkling of some lesser known songs and two brand new ones that seem to have been added at the expense of some more commercially viable offerings such as "Keeping The Faith". The songs on this compilation were seemingly put in an order in which they would sound good together rather than in chronological release order which is something I applauded at the time. That is what made it feel more like a mix tape than a greatest hits album.
One other interesting thing to note about this album is that a number of songs were edited for time. These songs are "The Stranger", "Just The Way You Are", "My Life", "Big Shot", "She's Got A Way" and "Pressure". In most cases, the cuts actually work. For example, I don't miss the verse "
Don't go trying/Some new fashion/Don't change the color of your hair/You always have my/Unspoken passion/Although I might not seem to care" and had always found it to be very jarring in the original version of the song. The one glaring exception is the removal of the piano interlude in "My Life". That's a travesty.
Two live songs were substituted for their studio versions in the release of this compilation. "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" is the live version from
Songs In The Attic rather than the studio version from
Turnstiles. Likewise, "She's Got A Way" is a live version rather than the studio version from
Cold Spring Harbor. The live version of "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" is the superior version because of its raw energy and harder edge. Due to the mis-mastering of
Cold Spring Harbor at a higher pitch than normal, the studio version of "She's Got A Way" was simply not releasable.
All in all, the 1985 release of
Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Volume I and II is a masterpiece which, like a Persian rug, has one flaw: the aforementioned cutting of "My Life". The problem is, in 1998, the album was remastered and re-released with a number of questionable tweaks. All songs that had been shortened on the 1985 version were restored to their original versions. The live version of "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" was replaced with the studio version from
Turnstiles and the live version of "She's Got A Way" was replaced by the studio version which had been re-mastered at the correct pitch. It's like giving the Mona Lisa a boob job. Sure, it looks better, but one tends to miss the original. They were unnecessary changes. The powers that be should have just released a completely different compilation with a different mix of songs.
So, for me, I'm just going to stick to my bulky clam-shelled version of
Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Volume I and II and pretend that the re-master never existed.
