Joel's Often Overlooked Masterpiece

Advantages: Great Album That Shows Off Some Of His Best Lyrics And Songs
Disadvantages: Perhaps Too Short, But Really Not Much of A Complaint

...Turnstiles is Joel's fourth studio effort and finds him at his peak in terms of song writing, just before the release of his landmark The Stranger. But as with most of his work, this is not the same in terms of feel as his next album, with Joel taking more of a hands-on approach for this album, choosing his own instrumentalists and producing it himself, thus giving him freedom in the studio for his own vision. After life in LA, Joel was becoming restless with the music scene, as seen in some of the songs on the album, notably Say Goodbye to Hollywood, and he decided to up sticks to New York. He originally recorded this with some of Elton John's entourage, but was dissatisfied with the results and thus came to the decision that this was an album best done by himself. The song writing itself feels a bit more expansive than some of his...

Robin_Hod12 09.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Turnstiles - Billy Joel

Timeless Album by Billy Joel

Advantages: Great songs
Disadvantages: None

...Last night I was cleaning my CD rack and I tried to rearrange my CD's. I noticed this 52nd Street album of Billy Joel. I realized that I haven't played it for such a long time. As this album is one of my favorites, I played it and I was again mesmerized by most of the songs. Tracks Listing 1. Big Shot 4:05 2. Honesty 3:53 3. My Life 4:44 4. Zanzibar 5:10 5. Stiletto 4;44 6. Rosalinda's Eyes 4:40 7. Half A Mile 4:09 8. Until The Night 6:36 9. 52nd Street 2:26 About Each Track Big Shot Because you had to be a big shot, didn't you? You had to open up your mouth You had to be a big shot, didn't you? This track has a Billy Joel trademark with overpowering exhibition of guitars. I always love it when he sings the line 'big shot' with great enthusiasm. This song never bores me. Billy sings this song with full energy...

browndoll 03.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of 52nd Street [ECD] [Remastered] - Billy Joel

Lost Histories by Joel Levy

Advantages: Few and far between
Disadvantages: Buyer beware!

...When I ordered this book I thought: "Great! This is really going to be fun! A book called 'Lost Histories'! The full title intrigued me even more. 'Exploring the World's Most Famous Mysteries'. Sadly, this book by Joel Levy (published by Vision Paperbacks at £10.99) really did disappoint me. The book is divided into five blocks. Not actually chapters, but rather blocks. These are: Lost Places, Lost Artefacts Lost Treasure, Lost People and lost Wrecks. This is where the book starts to fall down. Each story is divided up into sections with irritating horizontal black lines. The problem is that Levy and his designers use the same horizontal black lines to divide each individual story, so there is room for confusion. It is easy -and very irritating- to find that you had accidentally strayed into an entirely different story...

Martinscholes 17.07.2006 · Read review
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Review of Lost Histories - Joel Levy

FREE DVDs

Advantages: Free trial, large choice, post included,new realeases
Disadvantages: see review

...I like movies and I like freebies, so when you get offered both in one swoop you?re bound to accept! I used my two week free trial with this company and remained with them for a couple of monthsbefore moving on to try many other companies free trials (and winning a new DVD player on Tesco DVD rental site on their free trial offer). I then had an email from DVDs 365 asking me to go back, and offering me a free DVD if I did so. I had just left Tesco (with my new DVD player) so I chose to go back with them. ∆◊◊ THE SERVICE THEY OFFER ∆◊◊ Basically it?s like going to a video shop and hiring films on DVD, except you don?t pay for each film you chose ? rather a monthly fee for which you can watch as many movies as you can fit in, for us this is usually around 8 a month (2 a week usually weekends...

dabmim 15.11.2004 · Read review
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Review of dvds365.com

Surprising Picture Quality - Panasonic DVD-S54

Advantages: Incredible picture quality when compared to my old non-upscaling player with a scart lead
Disadvantages: Sometimes disc drive can be really noisy when DVD's initially load.

...At first I wasn't convinced by up-scaling DVD player technology but was persuaded after reading an article in "What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision" magazine. Unable to afford a Blu-Ray player my sister and I bought the Panasonic DVD-S54 to match our parents brand new Panasonic TX-32LZD80 LCD television as their Christmas 2008 present. Admittedly it was a slightly selfish purchase as we both live at home and wanted to watch DVDs on the big new TV ourselves! We bought the player from the electrical retailer Comet for about £100 just before Christmas so there were no discounts applied. On Christmas day when opened we found a relatively small box tightly packed with the player in polystyrene packaging. All the components such as cables, remote and manuals were well presented in their own protective plastic bags, to keep them protected. The player...

bobbacon985 12.02.2009 · Read review
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Review of Panasonic DVD-S54

Innocent Joel

Advantages: A classic
Disadvantages: a few slightly weaker tracks

...In my opinion this is Billy Joel's best album. 'An Innocent Man' is Billy Joel's tribute to a genre of music that he constantly speaks of with affection; the doo-wop and soul music of his youth in New York City. It has a big 50's feel to it with fresh sounds. The album starts off with 'Easy Money', a nice rock track which was also the title song to the 1983 movie starring Rodney Dangerfield. 'An Innocent Man' and 'The Longest Time' are 'old skool' R&B. 'This Night' is a ballad that is beautifully constructed. 'Tell Her About It' and 'Uptown Girl' were both hits that are played at clubs throughout the land and are great party tracks. 'Careless Talk' is funky and upbeat. "Christie Lee" is a piano/saxophone/drums combo which has great lyrics but is still possibly the weakest track on the album. 'Leave a Tender...

nigelpm 24.06.2001 · Read review
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Review of Innocent Man, An [Remastered] - Billy Joel

Robbo 2000: "It's cool to like Billy Joel"

Advantages: Very good songs
Disadvantages: Not as strangely attractive as Supernanny

...If you read the music press these days, you would be forgiven for believing that tofu-eating popsters Coldplay invented the piano. They did not: the piano has been around since olden times, and was actually invented by Jesus, probably. Or someone called John Piano. But I digress - the piano was a common tool of the trade for many of the wealth of singer-songwriters who cropped up in the seventies, of which Billy Joel was one. Famous mainly for 1983's wedding disco favourite Uptown Girl, Billy finds himself in the unfortunate position of being thought a bit crap by a good many people. But those people are just silly, and I'm going to tell you why. A BIT ABOUT BILLY The son of classically trained musicians, Billy had piano lessons forced upon him from the age of 4. He may not have liked this at the time, but when he grew up to be...

robbo2000 12.03.2006 · Read review
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Review of Stranger, The [ECD] [Remastered] - Billy Joel

The story of Kunta Kinte and his descendants

Advantages: A fantastic read! Very interesting and engaging.
Disadvantages: The language is difficult to understand at times.

..."Roots" is one of those novels that you hear about but never really have the time to read. I've always wanted to read it but the length of it has always deterred me. It must be said that I'm not an avid reader and I mainly read chic lit and the odd crime novel. However one day I decided that the time had come and I picked up a copy of "Roots" on my way home from work and started reading it the same evening. To be honest it took me the better part of a month to read the entire novel, but having said that I'm really glad I did. The plot **************************** "Roots" is an autobiographical novel in which we get to follow the author Alex Haley's family history from the 1750s up till the 1970s. Even though the people in the novel have all existed there's no way of knowing what their lives were really like, therefore there are...

Sandra24 30.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of Roots - Alex Haley

Spacey, Hunt, Osment: Pay It Forward Utopia

Advantages: Emotionally intense. Extremely well acted.
Disadvantages: Plot rather cheesy and saccharine at times.

...The Plot = Based on the book by Catherine Ryan Hyde, the story begins in Los Angeles with a man giving a reporter who is hassling him a really nice car. The reporter thinks there has to be a catch. The man says that all he has to do is do three big good turns for other people (i.e. "Pay It Forward"). We then switch to some time earlier and the start of the school year in Las Vegas. Mr Simonet - the new social studies teacher who has a mysteriously scarred face - sets his class an unusual assignment. They are told to find a way to change the world and implement it. Most do not take the assignment very seriously but Trevor (Haley Joel Osment), son of a struggling lone parent (Helen Hunt) takes it very seriously. When Trevor takes in a homeless drug addict for his assignment, his mother is furious and goes into school to...

susancarter 04.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of Pay It Forward (DVD)

Amazing-how to give away the op in one word

Advantages: An intersting and brilliant read
Disadvantages: none about the book, but the videos are pretty expensive

...'Roots' was first a book written by Alex Haley and then in 1977, was made into a TV series. It's the true account of Haley's 12 year search for his ancestors, traced as far back as 1750. The story begins with Kunta Kinte, a 17 year old african boy from the Gambia who was captured by slave traders and bought to America on a slave ship crammed with other prisoners. They were chained down and packed so tight they couldn't even turn around and were left to lay in their own waste until excercise time on the deck. During this time the women would communicate with the men through song what had happened to them, and what they could understand of the white people. The ships were originally built to hold 200, but about 500 were squashed in. The women were sexually abused and passed around the crew like worthless playthings and both sexes...

pennii 20.06.2001 (24.06.2001) · Read review
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Review of Roots - Alex Haley