Sony
2005
My Lives
About This Album
"People who just know Billy Joel from Top 40 singles may not like Billy Joel, and I can't say I necessarily blame them. I don't think that really represents the sum and substance of my work."

So says Joel in the liner notes to My Lives, a comprehensive four-CD/one-DVD box set that uses rarities, B-sides, soundtrack contributions, demos, album tracks, and the occasional hit to draw a musical biography of one of the more successful recording artists of the rock & roll era. In essence, the box is an argument for Joel's statement that his hits do not represent his work accurately (thereby, it also acts as an antidote to his previous box set, which just stuck the three volumes of his greatest hits together). The fact that this is a clearing-house for non-LP cuts, something that has been long awaited by hardcore fans, is almost beside the point -- this is intended as defense of Joel's work as a whole, an argument for his strengths as a writer and a musician, with the rarities being offered as Exhibit A. While it cannot be argued that Joel's unreleased material is on the level of either Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen -- quite frankly, he's not nearly as prolific a songwriter as either -- My Lives does act as a counterpart to Tracks or The Bootleg Series in how it fills in the cracks within the catalog.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 5,6,8,10 and 16)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 2,5,6,8 and 10)

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Disc 3

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Disc 4

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Disc 5

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