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Barbra Streisand's album #1

M

Music Lover

Guest
Just heard that Barbra Streisand's new album, Partners, is #1 on the Billboard chart. She's become the first artist to chart number 1 albums in 6 consecutive decades. Partners sold 196K this week making it her 10th top album. That ups her lead as most number one albums from a female artists and ties her at third with Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley for the overall record. Only the Beatles (19) and Jay-Z (13) have more.
 
Wait... there are actually people in this world who LIKE Barbra Streisand? Who are these people and how do I avoid contact with them?

Barbra Streisand has a hard-core cadre of fans who'll support her by buying her albums without hearing a song from them. My ex-wife was such a fan. They're like the "Wayniacs" who follow Wayne Newton, or Deadheads. It's like being a member of a secret society, or being an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons player back in the early 80's.
 
Wait... there are actually people in this world who LIKE Barbra Streisand? Who are these people and how do I avoid contact with them?

Yes. People actually like her. I consider myself a casual fan. I like some songs but certainly not everything.
 
Interesting to see how the Tony Bennet Lady Gaga album will do.


Barry Manilow is releasing a new album the week before Halloween....all duets with dead people.
 
Wait... there are actually people in this world who LIKE Barbra Streisand? Who are these people and how do I avoid contact with them?
I like almost everything she's done. Not "Somewhere" with the aliens from Zorblatt (but I do like HER in that version), but there are only a few songs by her I don't like.
 
Interesting to see how the Tony Bennet Lady Gaga album will do.


Barry Manilow is releasing a new album the week before Halloween....all duets with dead people.

Bennett/Gaga was #1 this week...Streisand fell to #3. What's fascinating to me isn't the chart placement (which just measures one record's performance against another for a seven-day period), but the raw sales numbers.

Bennett/Gaga only sold 130,000 copies. Streisand fell to 127,000.

With numbers like that, it's possible to have a #1 album that never goes platinum and a top 10 album (maybe even top 5) that can't make gold.

It's a tough business these days.
 
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Bennett/Gaga was #1 this week...Streisand fell to #3. What's fascinating to me isn't the chart placement (which just measures one record's performance against another for a seven-day period), but the raw sales numbers.

Bennett/Gaga only sold 130,000 copies. Streisand fell to 127,000.

With numbers like that, it's possible to have a #1 album that never goes platinum and a top 10 album (maybe even top 5) that can't make gold.

It's a tough business these days.

I've read recently that streaming has replaced owning music. http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/tech/web/music-streaming/
 
It's a tough business these days.

Not so much tough as it is totally changed. The shift from buying physical CDs to downloading preferred songs is a major paradigm shift for the recording industry. It's now about singles again, but now every cut on every album is released as a single! Some folks, mostly older people, still like to buy a physical CD. That's why older hardcore fans of artists like Streisand or Tony Bennett will buy a physical CD as soon as it is released without even hearing it first.

I have long contended that formats that play vintage music would attract more listeners if they would play well-liked album cuts that weren't originally released as single back in the day. Perhaps data on downloads of individual cuts from older catalog recordings would provide the kind of data that the suits who have no ear for music can understand and use to broaden playlists.
 
It's tougher in that piracy has reduced the revenue. Streisand is a talented singer. She has so many fans because she is talented. Not one of my favorite people either, but she does have a great voice.
 
I find her early 1970s Pop/semi-Rock days to be the most interesting. Her biggest hit during that time was "Stoney End". The 3 Laura Nyro singles she had in 1970-1971 were all good, which started with "Stoney End". During this time she did a song with the all-female Rock group Fanny, and had a minor hit with with the curious song-choice of "Mother" by composed by John Lennon, which was one of Lennon's primal scream therapy-based performances. Another single from 1973 or 1974 that bombed was the Bob Marley tune "Guava Jelly". Not always successful, she was doing some interesting and different things.
 
Streaming and downloading is not good enough for me. Part of the music experience for me is pulling the original record out of its sleeve, or CD out of its jacket... Looking over the cover and reading the liner notes... Putting the record on the turntable or CD on the tray. Lowering the arm handle on a record and locking the needle into a groove, or pressing 'close' on the CD player and dialing up the desired track. I'm also a label freak. I like looking at the label designs. My all-time favorite is the early Chelsea Records label (circa 1969-1973).
 
I haven't actually looked it up but Elvis was singing "Love Me Tender" this morning, and Jeff Rollins generally does not mention the song played before the most recent one, which was certainly a shame in this case. A woman with a voice like Barbra was singing instead of Elvis some of the time and with Elvis at other times, while it was mostly Elvis alone. Sounds like Nat King Cole technology was used.
 
I haven't actually looked it up but Elvis was singing "Love Me Tender" this morning, and Jeff Rollins generally does not mention the song played before the most recent one, which was certainly a shame in this case. A woman with a voice like Barbra was singing instead of Elvis some of the time and with Elvis at other times, while it was mostly Elvis alone. Sounds like Nat King Cole technology was used.

That's from the new Streisand album, Partners.
 
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