Appalled fascination and sneaking admiration, all in one 19-track package: frankly, ten quid rarely gets you so many thrillingly conflicting impressions outside of Rod Stewart's postcode. In places, at moments, in small doses, with a "skip track" function at the ready, Billy Joel's latest and most representative career overview almost sounds like the Great American Songbook you suspect Billy Joel thinks it is.
With more Tin Pan Alley panache and killer middle eights than you can shake a shtick at, "Piano Man: The Very Best Of Billy Joel" confirms that there's more to the Long Island boy than 100 million record sales and regularly-refreshed trophy wives.
The short answer to the question of what 'more' might be, exactly, is that – as with fellow tantrum-throwing ivory-tinkler Elton John -- reappraising Joel's superior Seventies output dilutes the taste of his radioactive Eighties oeuvre. Accordingly, the great American moments here are all pre-Reagan. "Piano Man"? A million MOR radio spins later, still an exquisitely bittersweet little charmer voiced by some hotel-lounge cousin of the world-weary cabbie in Harry Chapin's "Taxi". "Movin' Out (Anthony’s Song)"? A bouncy slice of prime Noo Yawker brio ("heartattack-ack-ack" chorus and all). "Only The Good Die Young"? A delicious piano intro and handclappingly irresistible, Catholic-girl-teasing cheek. "Always A Woman"? Scarcely a triumph of feminist thinking, and surely a David Brent cover-in-waiting. But, along with a flawlessly lachrymose "Honesty", it’s as perfect as this kind of ballad gets.
And then, of course, came 1980 or so, and all hell – and some god-awful production -- broke loose. Aside from the sketchy Beatles pastiche of "Scandinavian Skies", it's a fiesta of the big, the bad and the brassy. It's the stuff you think of if you think of Joel with a shudder; it's the stuff you listen to in silent, horrified fascination. In fact, as pleasant as it can be picking unexpected favourites from half of this compilation, the only thing better is deciding what, of the other half, is The Very Worst Of Billy Joel.
Are you more appalled by the sniggering New Wave pastiche of "Still Rock And Roll To Me", the lumbering power-melodrama of lone 90s track "All About Soul" (which isn't) or the chippy plastic doo-wop of "Uptown Girl"?
My money’s on the bellowing, surreally synth-plagued "We Didn’t Start The Fire". With its shouty, relentlessly incomprehensible précis of historical moments ("Pope Paul! Malcolm X! British politician sex! JFK! Blown away! What else do I hafta say!") it has all the hallmarks of being crafted for posterity.
Instead, it's almost certainly the lead track on the Great American Songbook in hell.
