The Toy Box: Barbra Streisand

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Retro Spins: Barbra Streisand - Till I Loved You

Here we are. My last Barbra Streisand album to push through. The journey started out okay with 1980's Guilty, dipped a bit with 1984's Emotion, then came crashing down on all sides with 1985's The Broadway Album. Needless to say, I have zero expectations that this is going to end on a high note with 1988's Till I Loved You. At this point, I'm mentally checked out on the Streister.

I think William Ruhlmann from AllMusic really captures my own personal opinion of the album perfectly. He says it's, "Like a movie with a great star, great production values, and a mediocre script, so how much you liked it depended on how much you liked Streisand." Well, not being personally invested in her, yeah, mediocre really sums it up.

Till I Loved You is very slow paced, very drab, and frankly, boring. Despite the uniqueness of the title track being a debut with Don Johnson, even he's not enough to save it. Not that he was necessarily a big draw in the music world beyond his hit Heartbeat. I'll only reserve from calling him a one hit wonder out of respect for his second single, Heartache Away, which peaked at 56. Suffice to say, he wasn't exactly selling albums himself. But, I digress. This is not a post about Johnson.

Much like Paul Grein from the Los Angeles Times, I also agree that it's good that Barbra went back to a style of music that works for her, versus her very pop heavy Emotion. Till I Loved You caters to "her" audience, and like Grein says, "Streisand is no longer trying to compete with singers half her age for the hearts and minds of the teenagers who buy singles and watch MTV". That's not a bad thing. Know your audience, and give them what they want.

As for me, I'm not her audience. I was the teenager who buys singles and watches MTV. Even at a dollar, I don't think I need the majority of Barbra Streisand's albums in my life. They're just taking up prime real estate on my limited shelf space.

I'm not going to call this album bad. Barbra gives her all, and leaves it at the microphone. I'm sure her fans really loved it, and I respect that. It's just not for me.

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Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.

THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
September 23, 1989

Retro Spins: Barbra Streisand - The Broadway Album

My journey through Barbra Streisand has been okay up to this point, but admittedly, I don't have a lot of expectation for her 1985 released, The Broadway Album. As a singer, Streisand tends to lean heavy into the ballad side of things, which isn't my thing. Now pair it with Broadway, which unto itself isn't one of my favorite genre's to dabble in, and it creates a bit of an uphill climb for me right from the start. But, I bought the album, so I'm going to push through.

When Babs told her label that she was going to cut a Broadway album, they protested, stating it wouldn't be commercial, produce any hits, and so on. The only reason they ultimately had to acquiesce was because her contract stated for being paid a lower rate she had full creative control to record whatever she wanted. So, while it was a passion project for her, to me, it feels like being forced to watch someone's vacation slides.

Upon turning the album on, I immediately was greeted by the annoying Putting It Together. There's a bunch of overlaid talking, people telling Barbra that this album is a bad idea, that nobody will like it, and all other sorts of negative reactions. When one goes into something already hesitant, it doesn't help when the artist themselves is essentially telling you their album is a bad idea. The song kind of made me angry.

Yes, Streisand brings her all. Her vocals are at the top of her game, but at the end of the day, it's a bunch of Broadway tunes. There's nothing here I'm adding to my shuffle list. I was already skipping tracks after a few seconds by the midway point, and eventually just ended up turning it off. I just didn't want to hear anymore.

It's kind of funny, and ironic at the same time that Barbra has sold platinum albums through the majority of her career, yet you can find truckloads of them for a dollar in the used CD bins. People bought them, then promptly offloaded them in mass.

So much negativity for this post. Ugh...and I still have one more album from her to get through. If you couldn't tell, I'm really looking forward to that.

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THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
September 22, 1984

Retro Spins: Barbra Streisand - Emotion

Hot on the heels of yesterday's post, and before I even finished writing it, I was well on my way through Barbra Streisand's 1984 album, Emotion. She's an artist who's albums I mostly ended up with because they were a dollar each. What can I say? I'm a sucker for cheap music.

As I continue my trek through actually listening to my massive collection, the journey has brought me to her albums. I made my way through 1980's Guilty yesterday, which admittedly was better than I expected. So, without further delay, let's keep going.

Emotion starts out with the title track. It was a weird listening experience for me because the music itself wasn't all that exciting, my Streisand's vocals kept me invested. This was something which continued to resonate through the following song, Make No Mistake, He's Mine (with Kim Carnes), and Time Machine (with Earth, Wind & Fire).

Additionally, unlike her prior album, Guilty, which had a very distinct Bee Gee's soft rock sound, for obvious reasons, Emotion is very synthesizer heavy. It's definitely a product of 1984, which hits a personal sweet spot for me. In fact it may have driven me to like this album more than I normally would.

The irony of this is that when Streisand steps out of what I'll call her "comfort zone", and actually decides to "rock", she does pretty good. The heavy, and heaviest track on the album, the John Mellencamp co-written, You're A Step In The Right Direction, is actually a solid tune. You can actually imagine, and hear Mellencamp singing it himself.

I also want to take a step and revisit a prior song, Left In The Dark. As I played through it, I was like, "Why is this song seven minutes long? It's too much!" The answer came when I looked into it further, and found that it was written by Jim Steinman. There's no doubt he's an excellent songwriter, but he seems to have issues with editing himself. His songs are often bloated in length.

As for the other's, I had to be cautious, and edit myself. Being impulsive to hearing "okay" music often leads to bloat of my shuffle list, and tunes I ultimately skip when they come back around. I can definitely see this happening with a lot of the songs from Emotion. As such, I'm going to limit myself to just the one noted above.

What I will say is that the album isn't bad. It's definitely more ballad heavy than I would prefer, but this was also something I expected from Babs. I don't correlate her to fast tempos or upbeat music. She's definitely a female crooner, and a contemporary artist through and through.

Barbra, herself, would go on to say in her memoir that Emotion was hodgepodge, and vowed to never record another pop album. Admittedly, this leaves me concerned for her last two releases of the 80's. Granted, I don't expect much from her 1985 follow-up, The Broadway Album, well, beyond a series of covers anyway. But it does leave me worried that her final album of the era, 1988's Till I Loved You, will be nothing short of boring. I guess we'll find out as I continue my journey.

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THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
September 21, 1985

Retro Spins: Barbra Streisand - Guilty

Here I am, back in unfamiliar territory. This time in the very unlikely neighborhood of Barbra Streisand. Babs to her friends, Barbara Joan Streisand to her family, and Mechastreisand to Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

My personal interest in her as a singer was simply for the Gibb brother's penned tune, Woman In Love, a song I'm not ashamed to admit I think is fantastic. It's what ultimately led me to buying her 1980 album, Guilty. As for her remaining 80's albums, Emotion (1984), The Broadway Album (1985), and Till I Loved You (1988), those ended up in my collection for being found in the bins for a dollar each while digging in the used CD section of McKays.

She's among one of the more common artists to find a plethora from when diving into most used bins, be it at shops, conventions, or yard sales. You'll typically find her among the fodder of Celine Dion, Jewel, Cheryl Crowe, Reba McEntire, and every throw away country artist of the 90's and beyond. Point being, there's a reason her albums are a buck a piece, and that's why I bought the ones from the 80's.

As for her personally, I don't know much. She's has a storied career which began at the Bon Soir nightclub in 1960. She then made her first television premiere on The Jack Paar Show (1961), which continued into her first Broadway appearance in 1962's I Can Get It For You Wholesale. She kicked off her solo recording career with 1963's The Barbra Streisand Album, and appeared in her first feature film, Funny Girl in 1968. She's even stepped behind the camera to produce and direct, with her first time being for 1991's Prince Of Tides. In between all of that, and ever since, she's worked hard to become a legacy singer / actress across the 20th and 21st centuries. That in a nutshell summarizes her lifetime career.

Keeping in tow with my ambition to push through listening to all the albums I own, which grows increasingly difficult as more get added to the fold, I finally come to Barbra. I'll admit, I have mixed feelings about this. I'm not foreseeing walking away from this as a fan. Further, I'm anticipating a lot of songs I simply don't like. I expect I'll hear a lot of ballads, love songs, and other such styles I'm not a big fan of. However, I'm also hopeful that among these I will hear a few here and there that I can get onboard with.

If there was one thing I'd say excited me for 1980's Guilty, it would be that all songs were written by Barry Gibb, and sporadically with the aid of his brother's Robin and Maurice. Yeah, I dig the Bee Gees. I'm not gonna lie. They're amazing song writers, and performers.

With hopes a little raised, I fired the album up, and admittedly heard what I expected. The overall pace of the tracks are slow. However, there's a definite Bee Gee's vibe to them, both in style and sound. With that said, I don't think that most of these would work if sung by the guys. These definitely need a woman's vocal, and Barbra absolutely nails every note.

I did end up pulling a few for my shuffle list, but don't know if I would necessarily actually listen to most of them again if they came around on my IPOD...Yes, I still listen to music on an IPOD. These songs included, Guilty, Promises, Life Story, Make It Like A Memory, and of course, Woman In Love.

Before even finishing this post, I was already a couple tracks into her follow-up album, 1984's Emotion. So without further ado, I jump over to that post, which you'll be able to pick up yourself tomorrow.

As for Barbra herself, there's not much more I can add to her personal history. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know her name, even if they've never seen one of her movies, or heard any of her music...Now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever seen one of her movies. Well, that's a problem for another day. I still have three albums to get through.

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THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
September 20, 1980

THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
September 20, 1986