虽然Billy Joel早就小有名气（他的第一首成名单曲'Piano Man'出自他1973年的同名专辑），却是1977的 The Stranger, Billy Joe的第五张专辑，让他成为pop/rock的偶像，并为他赢得许多赞许。The Stranger，是Billy Joel登上明星宝座的里程碑。1970年代中期出道至今，比利乔的专辑光是在美国一地就卖超过6千万张，是流行音乐史上最畅销的艺人之一。以隽永的旋律与深刻的歌词创作出无数流行金曲，无论是深情款款的情歌，还是反映社会现状的歌曲，比利乔让人折服之处，在于他巧妙地融合披头士流畅的旋律，百老汇歌曲的戏剧性，以及爵士乐华丽细腻的编曲风格，精巧地谱出属于普罗口味的流行歌曲，像是他早年的成名曲“Piano Man”、“Just The Way You Are”、“Uptown Girl”、“New York State Of Mind”，都是流行音乐史上的典范之作。这张专辑在滚石杂志选出的500张历代最强专辑中排名第67位。Billy Joel teamed with Phil Ramone, a famed engineer who had just scored his first producing hits with Art Garfunkel's Breakaway and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years for The Stranger, his follow-up to Turnstiles. Joel still favored big, sweeping melodies, but Ramone convinced him to streamline his arrangements and clean up the production. The results aren't necessarily revelatory, since he covered so much ground on Turnstiles, but the commercialism of The Stranger is a bit of a surprise. None of his ballads have been as sweet or slick as "Just the Way You Are"; he never had created a rocker as bouncy or infectious as "Only the Good Die Young"; and the glossy production of "She's Always a Woman" disguises its latent misogynist streak. Joel balanced such radio-ready material with a series of New York vignettes, seemingly inspired by Springsteen's working-class fables and clearly intended to be the artistic centerpieces of the album. They do provide The Stranger with the feel of a concept album, yet there is no true thematic connection between the pieces, and his lyrics are often vague or mean-spirited. His lyrical shortcomings are overshadowed by his musical strengths. Even if his melodies sound more Broadway than Beatles -- the epic suite "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" feels like a show-stopping closer -- there's no denying that the melodies of each song on The Stranger are memorable, so much so that they strengthen the weaker portions of the album. Joel rarely wrote a set of songs better than those on The Stranger, nor did he often deliver an album as consistently listenable.