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BARBRA
STREISAND - MUSIC
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| Had she
only been an actress or filmmaker, Barbra Streisand still would have
been
one of the most successful entertainers of the past four decades. But
it
is her singing, her voice, that is most unique and influential. She has
recorded everything from classical to show tunes and torch songs to
rock
and disco, and is the top-selling female recording artist in the
world. |
The
Essential Barbra Streisand [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] [LIMITED
EDITION]
Barbra Streisand
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| This
40-cut compendium traces her recording career from early tracks that
frequently
relay her subtlety to often impressive accommodations with soft rock
and
still later vibrato -fests that find her taxing the limits of
performer's
ego and listeners' ears. |
Memories
- Barbra Streisand
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| Excellent
album released in 1981. |
Simply
Streisand
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Barbra Streisand
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| If this
doesn't make you a Streisand fan then nothing will. |
What
About Today?
Barbra
Streisand
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| The underrated
gem of Streisand's catalogue. |
The
Second Barbra
Streisand
Album
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| Clearly
one of her best albums. |
The
Barbra Streisand Album
Barbra
Streisand
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| Streisand
seemed an "overnight" superstar when she released this debut LP in
1963;
two weeks after its release, Streisand was America's best-selling
female
singer. Within several months, Funny Girl would debut on Broadway...
and
the rest, as they say, is history. |
|
 Barbra
Streisand |
| Legendary
Barbra |
| Barbra
Movies |
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A
Love Like Ours
Barbra
Streisand
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| The love
album that will last forever! |
Higher
Ground -
Barbra
Streisand
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| She's
been eclipsed by generation of newfangled power divas, but Babs still
has
it--superior repertoire in the Tin Pan Alley tradition, deep-pile
production
from the likes of Foster, Mardin and Afanasieff, and those zillion
dollar
pipes. J.Bateman |
The
Broadway Album
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Barbra
Streisand
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| This
1985 recording marked Barbra Streisand's return to her Broadway roots
(significantly,
she had dropped her pop-period Guilty perm and returned to straight
hair).
The CD contains a broad selection of show tunes, from Guys and Dolls's
"Adelaide's Lament" to Sweeney Todd's "Not While I'm Around." |
Guilty
- Barbra Streisand
|
| Guilty
may well be Streisand's best pop album. At the peak of her late
'70s
popularity, she hooked up with the Bee Gees' Barry Gibb, who himself
was
basking in his Saturday Night Fever glow. Gibb wrote and produced most
of the material on 1980's Guilty, and he supplied background vocals as
well as co-leads on two tracks. The results are still completely
bewitching.
"Promises," for instance, is a lounge-like dance number and Babs sounds
simply fabulous --sexy, lighthearted, passionate, playful--all at once.
"Life Story" is a wild epic, and "Make It Like a Memory" keeps soaring
up & up into a stratosphere of shag-carpeted luxury. Even Gibb's
wavering
vocals are great --and not a little like a disco version of Mandy
Patinkin.
And of course, the hits are out of this world:"Woman in Love" and
"What Kind of Fool" are titanium -plated classics the likes of which
Streisand
has not topped since. A guilty pleasure, sure--just indulge.
--Elisabeth
Vincentelli |
Barbra
Joan Streisand
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| Bridge
Over Contemporary Waters |
Stoney
End
Barbra
Streisand
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| A fresh
beginning for Streisand's career as a contemporary pop artist |
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Barbra-The
Concert
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Barbra Streisand
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| Barbra's
spectacular concert at Madison Square Garden in 1994. |
Barbra:
The Concert Highlights [LIVE] Barbra Streisand
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One
Voice [LIVE]
Barbra
Streisand
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| Barbra
put on this concert
at her Malibu home to make money for charities. |
A
Happening in Central Park [LIVE] Barbra Streisand
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| Recorded
in 1967 when she was at her artistic zenith and still a funny girl |
Live
Concert at the Forum [LIVE] Barbra Streisand
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| Barbra
Live, what more could you want! |
A
Collection: Greatest Hits... And More
Barbra
Streisand
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| The years
1975-1988 contained big successes for Streisand, though she ran through
an unsteady gauntlet of disco-fied pop & pseudo-Broadway show
stoppers. This collection, originally released in 1989, brings together
the hits of those years--like the two Barry Gibb duets, "What Kind of
Fool"
and "Guilty"--in a range of production scenarios utilizing the talents
of Rupert Holmes, Andrew L. Webber, Phil Ramone, Dave Gruisin, and
others.
The two new recordings added to begin and end the package, "We're Not
Makin'
Love Anymore" and "Somewhere," serve as bookends of the dance and
ballad
style Streisand revolved around throughout her later career. --Stephen
M.H. Braitman |
Back
to Broadway [SOUNDTRACK]
Barbra
Streisand
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Barbra Streisand's status as one of the most successful singers of
her generation is all the more remarkable not only because her
popularity has been achieved in the face of a dominant musical trend --
rock & roll -- which she did not follow, but also because, despite
an amazing singing voice that has enthralled practically anyone who has
heard it, she has always used singing as a mere stepping stone to other
careers, as a stage and film actress and as a film director.
Streisand struggled briefly as an actress and nightclub singer
in New York in the early '60s before landing her first part in a
Broadway show, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, in 1962. The cast album
for that show and a subsequent appearance on a studio revival of Pins
and Needles were her first recordings. Signed to Columbia Records, she
released her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, in 1963. It
became a Top Ten, gold-selling record, turning Streisand into one of
the best-selling recording artists of the early '60s.
But despite three successful albums by early 1964, Streisand
turned her back on potentially lucrative concert bookings in favor of a
starring role in the Broadway show Funny Girl, in which she appeared
for more than two years. "People" from that show became her first Top
Ten single, and the People album her first chart-topping LP. She turned
to television in 1965 with My Name Is Barbra, the first of five network
specials. In 1967, Streisand went to Hollywood to film Funny Girl, for
which she would win an Academy Award. But by 1970, with her second and
third films flops and her recording career flagging in the face of
rock, she seemed consigned to Las Vegas before turning 30. Instead, she
returned to hit-making with a Top Ten cover of Laura Nyro's "Stoney
End" and a successful non-singing performance in the comedy The Owl and
the Pussycat.
In the 1970s, Streisand successfully married her musical and
film acting interests, first in The Way We Were, a hit film with a
theme song that became her first number one single, and then with A
Star Is Born, which featured her second number one single, "Evergreen,"
a song she co-wrote. From that point on, every album she released sold
at least a million copies. In the late '70s, she found recording
success in collaboration: her duet with Neil Diamond, "You Don't Bring
Me Flowers," hit number one, as did "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),"
a dance record sung with Donna Summer. She had her biggest-selling
album in 1980 with Guilty, which was written and produced by Barry Gibb
of the Bee Gees and contained the number one hit "Woman in Love." In
1983, Streisand's first directorial effort, Yentl, became a successful
film with a Top Ten soundtrack album. In 1985, The Broadway Album
returned her to the top of the charts. 1991 saw the release of Just for
the Record..., a boxed set retrospective, and her second film as a
director, The Prince of Tides. Streisand returned to the concert stage
in 1994, resulting in the Top Ten, million-selling album The Concert.
In 1996, she directed her third film, The Mirror Has Two Faces, and in
1999 she released A Love Like Ours.
The 2000 album Timeless: Live in Concert was recorded at her
Las Vegas show on New Year's Eve 1999 and released on both CD and DVD.
A year later, the new holiday album Christmas Memories arrived, then a
sequel to The Broadway Album, The Movie Album, appeared in 2003. In
2005, a deluxe CD/DVD reissue of the original Guilty was followed a
month later by Guilty Pleasures, a new album that reunited Streisand
with Gibb. In 2006 she returned to the concert stage, documented in the
2007 Sony release Live in Concert. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Content provided by All Music Guide © 2008 All Media
Guide, LLC
