Simply Streisand

AMG Review of Simply Streisand

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

After three albums related to television specials and one of French songs, Simply Streisand was Barbra Streisand's first "regular" new album since People three years earlier and her first new release of any kind in a year. (Before, her albums came regularly every six months.) By now, the singer was spending her time in Hollywood shooting movies, and the music scene had moved heavily into ock, developments that made this a perfunctory set and one released into an indifferent climate; unlike her previous eight albums, Simply Streisand missed the Top Ten. But it isn't that bad. Streisand is not an accomplished performer of classic pop standards like "My Funny Valentine" and "More Than You Know," largely because she seems too intimidated by the material to put an individual stamp on it, but she is a great singer, and if arranger Ray Ellis' charts lack the invention of Peter Matz's, they are conventionally competent. If this were the only Streisand album you ever heard, you'd still think she was good. It's only in comparison to what went before that it seems mediocre.