It's time to rank the best of what went around and came around again.
BILLY JOEL
The Stranger
(Columbia/Legacy)
As punk and disco exploded, the Piano Man's deeply unhip 1978 breakthrough proved that top-shelf Broadway/Brill Building songwriting could still sell - and, occasionally, rock. "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" and "Anthony's Song (Movin' Out)" remain priceless snapshots of Annie Hall-era NYC, the title track bares real teeth, and the Kenny Chesney fave "Only the Good Die Young" -
REVIEW BY IAN HRABE
Last night at the Granada, amid the smell of industrial-strength permanent marker mingled with various perfumes in a crowd of rowdy young women and their boyfriends, I bought everything Jenny Lewis was selling.
Scott Spychalski
Though I've always found the vocals on her solo records to be a bit too thin for her country-folk-gospel songs, by the end of the night I was reminded of why Jenny Lewis is one of my favorite female singers in the business. Her set featured an equa
BY ELKE MERMIS
Conor Oberst has endured a slew of slightly painful Bob Dylan comparisons since he penned his very first sprawling story-song in his Midwestern hometown in the late '90s. Yeah, he's got a weird voice; yeah, he's a masterful lyricist; yeah, he's from a smallish town in the middle of the country, hates fame, whatever, we get it. But the truth in these comparisons never struck me with the sheer force that they did on Sunday night, when Conor Oberst unveiled his latest incarnation in
