The Essential Barbra Streisand

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Barbra Streisand

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Wow! This is a masterpiece 2 cd set spanning Barbra's 40 years with SONY/COLUMBIA!! All of the biggest,and most be-loved hits are included and they never sounded better!!! They have been digitally re-mastered. The inclusion of 2 un-released songs are worth the price alone! The newly recorded "YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE" that Barbra performed with a full orchestra and choir at the recent EMMY AWARDS is chilling and one of her most brilliant recordings ever! You will LOVE this 2 set cd! A PIECE OF SKY never sounded more dramatic as it does re-mastered! It will bring fond memories hearing those poignant duet hits like YOU DON'T BRING ME FLOWERS with Neil Diamond, TELL HIM with Celine Dion and the disco smash ENOUGH IS ENOUGH with Donna Summer!! forty years of career hits on a 2 cd set is EXCEPTIONAL indeed! May Streisand look forward to many more successful years with SONY/COLUMBIA who have always done the best promoting this legend!! A++++++++++++++

I'll jump right to 1971 with her charted single "Where You Lead" which just charted at #40 on the pop chart, but, it's nowhere to be found on this double CD collection, and yet, oddly enough, the non-hit track "Since I Fell For You" (which was on the flip side of that single) is in this collection. But, I can live with that. Let's move on....

But four things that really bug me about this double CD collection is the lack of four very important songs for Barbra Streisand. Two of her Top 20 singles "Songbird" (#25) and "Love Theme from "Eyes of Laura Mars" (#21). Plus, from her 1983 soundtrack "Yentl," they took two non-hit songs from this album, "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" and "A Piece of Sky," which of course, are great songs, but my most absolute favorite song from Barbra Streisand is not on this collection from that album. Sure, it only charted at #40 in 1983, but "The Way He Makes Me Feel" is her most beautiful song ever written about a girl starting to discover her own raging hormones. And, because it did chart on the Top 40, I just think that it shouldn't have been overlooked.

But, I would think everyone's biggest compliant would probably be for the lack of one of her very few Top Ten Singles. In 1981, her shared single with Barry Gibb, "What Kind of Fool" is not in this collection. What kind of fool would choose to leave it out from an Essential collection while putting in so many non-familiar recordings?

I can see now why people just download individual songs to just make their own interpretation of someone's most essential songs.