The inaugural release in the
Columbia
/
Legacy
2011
Billy Joel
reissue series,
The Hits
is the first-ever U.S. single-disc overview of the piano man's full career. Even his first compilation, 1986's
Greatest Hits, Vols. 1-2
, was a double-LP set and so was 2001's
The Essential
, so just having a 19-track summation of
Joel
's career is useful, but fortunately,
accomplishes its job well. True, it bends the rules a little -- the opening
"Everybody Loves You Now"
never charted, nor did
"New York State of Mind,"
and there are some notable absences, chief among them his first Top Ten hit
"Just the Way You Are"
and
"Uptown Girl,"
along with the anthem
"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant"
-- but what's here constitutes
Billy
's basic canon:
"Piano Man,"
"Movin' Out (Anthony's Song),"
"Only the Good Die Young,"
"My Life,"
"You May Be Right,"
"It's Still Rock and Roll to Me,"
"Allentown,"
"Pressure,"
"We Didn't Start the Fire."
Those double-disc sets dig deeper, offering other hits and album tracks, but there's always been a need for a single disc with most of
's hits, and that's what
delivers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine