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"
Head to the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center tonight to catch pure-pop 'heads the Rosebuds along with friends-of-Bon Iver, Megafaun. In this week's paper, Christian Schaeffer says:
In Annie Hall Woody Allen's character Alvy Singer notes that a romantic relationship is like a shark: It has to keep moving forward, or it will die. This advice is doubly true for Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp, the married couple who's also the core of the Rosebuds. The North Carolina band has continually moved forward ov
