52nd Street
by Billy Joel
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Billy Joel bestography
52nd Street is ranked 3rd best out of 27 albums by Billy Joel on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Billy Joel is The Stranger which is ranked number 236 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 6,625.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
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52nd Street track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 82 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
52nd Street rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 5 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | stevengnz | Top 100 Music Albums of 1978 | 12/100 | 4 |
| 2026 |  Tamthebam | Top 100 Music Albums of 1978 | 21/100 | 4 |
| 2026 |  Leonard | Top 100 Music Albums of 1978 | 4/100 | 5 |
| 2026 |  Squonk007 | Top 37 Music Albums of 1978 | 27/37 | 1 |
| 2026 | Johnnyo | Grammys: All of the albums of the year | 21/67 | - |
| 2026 | fabm0 | Platinum albums Pt 3 | 72/100 | - |
| 2026 | fabm0 | All Time Pt 5 | 13/100 | - |
| 2026 | juanr1096 | Top 59 Music Albums of 1978 | 32/59 | 2 |
| 2026 | CjHubb117 | Top 84 Music Albums of the 1970s | 77/84 | 2 |
| 2026 | machiaj | Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | 80/100 | 20 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 250 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 1,213 | |||
52nd Street collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 207 members
52nd Street ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 333 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 05/17/2026 21:44 | CjHubb117 | 300 | 89/100 |
| ! | 05/08/2026 18:01 | Jakor | 5,550 | 70/100 |
| ! | 05/03/2026 00:59 | DrunkenDadGaming | 45 | 73/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 77.8/100, a mean average of 77.0/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 77.9/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.1.
52nd Street favourites
Showing latest 10 members who have added this album as a favourite | Show all 45 members
52nd Street forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 06/27/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5356): By marco1752nd Street comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
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It had been a while since I've played this, so I decided to play it and Glass Houses. Just couldn't remember which one I liked better. I'm going to say Glass Houses is the better one because 52nd Street side two is just average. Both enjoyable albums, although a step down from The Stranger. (Edited)
Winner of the 1980 Grammy for album of the year (Edited)
A step down from The Stranger, but still a solid effort. Not as melodically memorable as The Stranger, and the lyrics aren't as good either. A more jazzy foray than his previous album. It's frontloaded and Side 2 slips in quality but besides the weakest track "Rosalinda's Eyes" - which is still a decent song - everything else is quality. "Big Shot" and "'My Life" are the two best tracks on the album. (Edited)
This album definitely peaks on side 1 and then slowly declines as you get towards the closing of the album. It opens in explosive style with Big Shot which literally bursts onto the scene and gives you a fantastic melodic start to the record. You then get 3 of the best songs on the record all in a row in the form of Honesty, My Life and Zanzibar. All of them are so well written and are so catchy that you can't help but love them. All the songs on here in fact are well written and I do think Billy Joel is an under rated song writer and deserves more credit for his abilities. After that we move onto Stiletto which does drop in quality but still is quite a good song and is easy to enjoy. It is all filler in my opinion after that song and those 4 last tracks do feel unnecessary for me. This is the big issue for the record for me and is what holds it back from his better releases. Overall, there is a lot of great singles on here but the album falls flat at the middle point. (Edited)
Like so many Billy Joel albums, it is front loaded.
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