Streetlife Serenade  by Billy Joel

A year after the success of Piano Man, Billy Joel returns to the discography with his third album, Streetlife Serenade in 1974, under pressure from the people at Columbia Records to repeat the success of the previous year. Streetlife Serenade moves musically within the soft rock genre.

According to the artist himself, Streetlife Serenade was quite hastily written due to the aforementioned reason. The existence of two instrumental compositions (Root Beer Rag & The Mexican Connection) proves his point as he did not have the time he needed to turn them into songs. The production of the album was once again handled by Michael Stewart, and the musicians who played in the studio to record the album were session musicians. Billy Joel uses the moog synthesizer for the first time on this record.

Ultimately, the album reached No. 35 on the Billboard and only with the passage of time has it sold over 1,000,000 copies in the USA, which is five times less than the sales of Piano Man (!)