Looking at the numbers makes Billy Joel’s “retirement” all the more impressive. He truly went out at the top of his game, with River of Dreams selling more than 5 million copies and vying for an Album of the Year Grammy. To just hang it up after a success like that takes some guts.

When this album came out (in 1993), Alex and I went to the store and each bought a copy of the CD. This was in the days before iPods and easy CD burning, and several years before we’d get married and merge our CD collections. It’s hard to believe it’s been 16 years since I last purchased a Billy Joel album.

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