Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)

There’s a beautiful scene near the end of the 2009 movie Adventureland in which Jesse Eisenberg takes a bus-ride to New York City, peering out of the window. He soaks in the bright lights and city sprawl, and it rejuvenates him after a summer spent cooped up in the dingy theme park he work at.

Turnstiles is a lot like that bus ride: It witnesses Joel’s departure from his brown, sparse west coast life to the dense, colorful comfort of his home state. In turn, he channels equally a Broadway flair and a towering, Born to Run sonic sprawl that leave in the dust his musty James Taylor/Elton John impression of his first three albums.

Four of the eight tracks reference either New York or his departure from California in their titles. He reminisces about his time away (I’ve Loved These Days) and notes that life is still not perfect (Summer, Highland Falls) but makes it clear that New York is where he wants and needs to be (New York State of Mind).

The second reason Turnstiles is a turning point for Joel’s recording career is that he, for the first time, used his touring band in the studio. It makes a world of difference; these tracks are energetic and moving over large stretches in a way that previous albums could achieve for fleeting moments or single tracks.

I’ll go over this a bit more when I discuss his live albums, but Joel has never received enough credit for being an excellent band leader and talent organizer. Joel’s live act never matched the notoriety of legends like Springsteen, but the talent of Joel’s act nearly matches the likes of the E-Street Band. Listen to Songs in the Attic and tell me otherwise. The group’s skill and synergy manifests itself brilliantly on Turnstiles.

There’s not a weak track among the eight here. From the opening Phil Spector impression to the closing piano fade-out, Turnstiles is varied and compelling. Beyond the more diverse inspirations that came from Joel’s change of scenery, this album benefits from Joel reaching a melodic and emotional peak in his writing craft.

A few prominent themes recur across these songs. One is the idea that life is spent in alternating extremes. “It’s either sadness or euphoria,” notes Summer, Highland Falls, one Joel’s greatest ballads. Say Goodbye to Hollywood observes that “life is a series of ‘hellos’ and ‘goodbyes’ / I’m afraid it’s time for goodbye again.”

As with Joel’s previous albums, maturity is another big topic here. But for the first time, we sense Joel may have done a bit of it himself. All You Wanna Do is Dance — another nearly forgotten gem — gently critiques someone who’s having too much damn innocent fun to grow up. There’s a tone of jealousy in the words.

Joel also straddles the line of maturity in Prelude/Angry Young Man. It works both as a self-skewering and a self-defense. There is certainly a bit of self-analysis when he describes the Angry Young Man in the third person, but he also takes the first person as he notes that “I believe I’ve passed the age / Of consciousness and righteous rage,” showing that he’s attempting to move beyond his angriest days (Piano Man/Cold Spring Harbor).

Another track that considers maturity is James, which sports the most forgettable melody here (though that is not saying much at all). The song a letter to a former friend who gave up his musical career to face the real world. Joel remains skeptical that James made the correct decision: “Do what’s good for you or you’re not good for anybody.” This struggle between practical reality and youthful dreams would come to a head an album later.

The only song which doesn’t really contribute much to the album’s emotional complexity is the closing track, Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway), a bizarre apocalyptic tale of a concert that goes up flames. It’s silly but raucous enough in the right live setting to be an excellent listen..

Turnstiles was Joel’s most lyrically ambitious and successful album thus far in his career. Yet it’s the music, which matches the words point for point in improvement, that really steals the show.

One obvious highlight is Joel’s individual performance work. From the mind-melting 128th notes that start Prelude/Angry Young Man (he’s playing them and the accompanying piano notes by himself) to the sweeping beauty of New York State of Mind, Joel’s piano-work would never be better than it is here. His vocal work is excellent, too, covering a variety of tones with accuracy and strength.

But the arrangements and performances are, in general, very strong. The biggest improvement from past albums is the drumming, which Liberty DeVitto, a new addition who would remain a Joel stalwart, uses to bring the tracks to life nearly as much as Joel’s piano does.

To pick a most impressive musical accomplishment, or even a short-list, on this album is challenging. New York State of Mind is one of the most enduring, virtuosic tributes to the Empire State ever recorded. But you can also make a strong case for Summer, Highland Falls as a perfect Joel ballad, Say Goodbye to Hollywood as a spine-tingling Spector (or, rather, Be My Baby) tribute, and Prelude/Angry Young Man as Joel’s manifesto.

With the exception of New York State of Mind, Turnstiles rarely sees the love or radio play of Joel’s upcoming stretch of albums, but it marks the beginning of his creative peak and ranks among Joel’s finest works.

Rating: ★★★ (out of five)

Piano Man is such a satisfying album in part because it’s so obviously a full-hearted, emotionally-draining effort. That makes it less surprising — though no less disappointing — that Streetlife Serenade sounds exhausted and depleted.

Streetlife Serenade crystallizes the faint western hints on Piano Man and ends up with a loose concept album about life on the west coast. But where Elton John’s western album told tales of cowboys and guns and saloons, Joel chronicles the modern frontier: 9-to-5 work life and Los Angeles indulgence and suburban routine. It’s as unromantic as it sounds.

Joel headlines the album with two ill-conceived attempts at profound social observation. The title track (rather, the almost-title track Streetlife Serenader) outlines the theme of everyday encounters that the rest of the album would largely follow. It strives too hard to be profound and fails to redeem itself with a memorable tune.

The second of these is Los Angelenos at least provides a strong melodic background. But it stumbles just as hard as Streetlife Serenader in its attempts at incisive observation. Perhaps a more precise, explicit chronicle of aimless indulgence could have worked along the lines of Captain Jack.

The next track, Great Suburban Showdown, captures a hazy warmth and succeeds slightly more than the opening tracks at chronicling a way of life. It also seems to be a thinly veiled dismissal of his roots on the east coast – “I’m gone with the wind and I won’t be seen again.” It’s a bit ironic then that his homecoming would provide a creative spark two years later.

In all, the opening three tracks feel like a misfire. They foreshadow Joel’s continual failure to be a poet laureate for his age, or really for anyone but himself and Long Island (both of which he’s served well).

Fortunately, the later tracks redeem the package from being a complete disaster. After a brief instrumental detour (more on instrumentals later), Joel unleashes five straight compelling tracks. The best of these is The Entertainer, a song that succeeds on a few levels.

First, it serves a nice complement to Everybody Loves You Now, with Joel now the one “at the center of the stage.” And how does he find it? Just as ungratifying and lonely as he projected. The Entertainer is a brilliant trashing of the music industry: himself, the labels, even the fans.

Particularly memorable is the verse where he reflects on Piano Man’s title track: “It was a beautiful song / But it ran too long / If you’re gonna have a hit / You gotta make it quick / So they cut it down to 3:05.” It recalls the frustrating release of the Piano Man single, summarized here.

The Entertainer is also the most sonically panoramic track Joel had yet recorded. It showcases Joel’s first prominent use of an electric keyboard and features a number of different instruments jamming in the background of each verse.

Its strong melody paired with compelling lyrics and sonic expansion make it the jewel of Streetlife Serenade and one of the better tracks of Joel’s early career.

Another strong track on the album is Roberta, the fifth track on the album. It covers a narrative that’s almost a cliche at this point — falling in love with a prostitute or a stripper — but does so with grace and one great line after another. It’s one of Joel’s few tracks where the lyrics are much more compelling than the song itself.

A few tracks later, Joel really nails the western vibe for the first time in a pair of songs, Last of the Big Time Spenders and Weekend Song. The former is a pretty generic love song and covers a well-trod Joel theme: I’m not rich or fancy, but I can give you my time, music, and love.

The latter, though, is a great example of why it’s worthwhile to go through each of Billy Joel’s albums, not just greatest hits discs. I don’t want to overstate Weekend Song’s greatness, but it’s a track that should have been a single. The song blends a honky-tonk melody and earnest lyrics to a strong effect.

To close out the excellent five-song stretch is the shortest track Joel ever recorded, Souvenir, which clocks in at 1:59. It has a spectacular finality to it: “Every year’s a souvenir that slowly fades away.” In many ways it captures Joel’s struggle for significance that’s defined much of his career. For years, he closed every concert with this song, and I can’t think of a more fitting finale.

Souvenir would have been a perfect album capper, but Joel goes ahead and ruins the close of the album with the inclusion of another instrumental. Here’s my issue with the instrumentals: They’re just taking up space that would have been better used by full songs.

The more defensible of the two instrumentals is Root Beer Rag which seems to echo the ragtime stereotypically played in old west saloons. It matches the western feel of the album. But The Mexican Connection, which closes the album, really makes it sound like Joel just ran out of time to write lyrics. It detracts from an impressive closing stretch on the album and leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.

In all, it just feels like there’s less music and fewer ideas on this album than Piano Man — subtract the instrumentals, and you’re left with eight short tracks, one of which runs less than two minutes. And the overall quality of the songs is a grade below the songs on Piano Man in spite of a few gems.

Fortunately, the peak of his career was just on the horizon, and Streetlife Serenade ends up an inconsistent oddity, barely a blip on the radar, rather than a harbinger.

This post is part of The Month of Billy Joel series.