Interesting review of Streisand's GUILTY PLEASURES

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 11/1/05 at 9:21pm

The author likes it far more than I do, but he throws off some interesting thoughts on why he thinks the album is tanking:

"If GUILTY PLEASURES is so good, why is it selling so poorly?

Rumor has it that Columbia shipped well over a million copies of GP (some claim the figure was closer to 2 million). Columbia’s expectations were dashed when GP only managed to sell 101,000 copies in its first week. What’s worse, the CD has begun to plunge down the charts. To add to the disappointment, Barbra’s first single (Stranger in a Strange Land) has failed to make any of Billboard’s single charts.

The reasons for this disaster are quite obvious:

1. Fans get tired of buying bad music. Many fans have not liked anything she’s done since Higher Ground. Some have not liked anything since The Broadway Album. Particularly painful were A Love Like Ours and her worst CD ever, The Movie Album. You can only take so much before you give up on a singer.

2. Fans don’t like celebrities that are full of themselves. Barbra has made it clear she records for herself, not for her fans. Her attitude is a turn off to today’s audiences who expect their idols to be appreciative of their fans.

3. Fans don’t like to be preached to. Even Madonna learned her lesson. Her anti-war statement, American Life, became her lowest selling cd ever. Even the Queen of Pop now knows that her fans don’t care about her views. Her newest CD (to be released on November 15) is called Confessions On the Dance Floor and represents her return to what her fans like most about her. Barbra, on the other hand, made it clear that she still is making political statements in her music. The video for Stranger in a Strange Land is clearly an anti-war statement. Even though many agree with her view, they don’t buy music to satisfy political beliefs. The news is bad enough; do we have to hear it in our music too?

4. Fans like to watch videos (i.e., decent ones). Ironically, the advent of music videos has contributed greatly to the demise of Streisand, a former movie and TV star. When music videos started, it was assumed Streisand, who had several hit movies and TV specials under her belt would also have hit music videos. Well, it just didn’t happen. The vast majority of her videos have her singing into a microphone in a recording studio. It’s like she doesn’t even bother. Well, the video for Stranger in a Strange Land received no airplay, adding to the failure of the single.

5. Streisand was considered a singer’s singer. In her current state of vocal decline, she no longer fits that description. Fans tend to get disappointed when they realize she isn’t all that spectacular any more."

(More at link)
GUILTY PLEASURES review

Posted: 11/1/05 at 9:27pm

I still haven't bothered to buy it. No interest.

Agree with many of the points made.