Tag Archives: barbrashallowdive

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Song of the Day #5,893: ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’ – Barbra Streisand feat. John Mayer

Following Love is the Answer, Barbra Streisand’s last 15 years as a recording artist have been unremarkable. She has released just four studio albums during that time, along with several live albums.

2011’s What Matters Most was a tribute to the songs of her friends, lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman. In 2014, Partners was a collection of duets with male singers. That album did well enough to spawn 2016’s Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, which found Streisand singing show tunes with such unlikely collaborators as Melissa McCarthy, Antonio Banderas, and Alec Baldwin.

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Song of the Day #5,892: ‘Where Do You Start?’ – Barbra Streisand

I’ve noticed a pattern when digging into the catalogs of major artists. They all seem to have a burst of activity for the first decade or two before tapering off. Maybe it’s because they’re too comfortable to put in the hard work, or perhaps their muse has just run out.

Barbra Streisand is no exception. After averaging more than an album a year for the first 23 years of her career, she hit the brakes. After The Broadway Album in 1985, she released just four more albums before the turn of the millennium.

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Song of the Day #5,891: ‘Not While I’m Around’ – Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand’s output slowed down in the 80s. After averaging more than an album a year since the start of her recording career, she waited four years after 1980’s Guilty to release her next one.

That was Emotion (1984), a return to the middle of the road pop material she put out in the 70s. The album sold decently but earned a collective shrug from critics. Streisand decided it was time to go back to her roots.

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Song of the Day #5,890: ‘Woman in Love’ – Barbra Streisand

In order to keep this Barbra Streisand Shallow Dive moving, I have to do a lightning round on the rest of her 70s releases. She followed The Way We Were with a half dozen albums, one per year.

Butterfly (1794), which saw her dabble in R&B and reggae, has been dismissed by Streisand herself as her worst album. Lazy Afternoon (1975) offered a more laid-back collection of easy listening material. Classical Barbra (1976) featured songs by European composers performed in multiple foreign languages.

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Song of the Day #5,889: ‘Something So Right’ – Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand came out the same year as Stoney End and found Streisand continuing her shift into pop music.

The album is an interesting one that helps define both her strengths and limitations. Covers of songs by John Lennon and Carole King fall rather flat. The beauty of King’s Tapestry tracks, for example, is how simply and earnestly she sings them. The same songs delivered with theatrical bombast are somehow lessened.

But Streisand’s delivery of work by Burt Bacharach and Lara Nyro on the same record is transcendent.

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