Nobody ever mistook Billy Joel for a matinee idol. In a world that worships angular, tall, rangy types like Robert De Niro and John Travolta, Joel is out of place. Short and thick-bodied, with eyes as enormous (and frequently as bloodshot) as Robert Mitchum's, with a busted nose and lopsided grin, Joel is a perfect Hell's Kitchen wise guy, a real-life deadend kid. He walks in a rolling lope, too fluid to be a limp — a gait common only to sailors and young men who grew up wearing pants that, while stylish, were cut a bit snug in the crotch. His diction would appall the Shangri-Las.

Still, Billy Joel is somebody's hero. The Stranger, his 1977 album, has sold more than 4 million copies, making it the second-biggest seller in the history of Columbia Records (Bridge over Troubled Waters is the biggest). The album spawned four substantial hit singles: "Movin' Out," "She's Always a Woman," "Only the Good Die Young" and "Just the Way You Are." And it was not a fluke. The new LP, 52nd Street, sold 2 million copies in its first month on the shelves; after only three weeks it went to Number One on Record World's chart, knocking off Grease. The first single from 52nd Street, "My Life," was hitbound before it was pressed. And as a concert attraction, Joel is also booming: he now plays 15,000-seat arenas in cities where a year ago he was working clubs.

So far, that description is of a basic Seventies success story, not so far removed from Bob Seger or Boz Scaggs or Fleetwood Mac. Knowing that Joel has been recording with little commercial luck since 1971 only enhances the impression that it's a formula triumph.

Billy Joel doesn't buy that.