Rating:
Genre:
Vocal Music
Release Date: 02/01/2008
While still an impressive recording,
Back to Broadway is less impressive than its predecessor,
The Broadway Album, for a number of reasons. The first is material.
Barbra Streisand seems to be attracted to certain musicals, and here she chooses more songs from shows like
West Side Story and
Guys And Dolls that she didn't pick the last time around. Still attracted more to current composers than earlier ones,
Streisand picks five songs by
Stephen Sondheim (who has once again obligingly rewritten lyrics to suit her) and three by
Andrew Lloyd Webber. The
Sondheim material is worthy; the
Lloyd Webber is not. (Though the intensity with which she sings
"With One Look" from
Sunset Boulevard suggests an eerie identification with the show's demented silent movie queen
Norma Desmond.) Further,
Streisand has done duets on two selections with people better identified with the material --
Michael Crawford, the original Phantom in
Phantom of the Opera, on his signature song, "The Music of the Night," and
Johnny Mathis, who has sung a medley of
West Side Story songs in his shows for years, on a medley of "I Have a Love/One Hand, One Heart" from that show. Finally, the arrangements and production lean more toward contemporary pop and light jazz in many instances, the influence of commercial producers and arrangers like
David Foster. All of which means that
Back to Broadway is somewhat uneven. When
Streisand takes on songs as well suited to her as "Everybody Says Don't" (from
Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle) and "Children Will Listen" (from his
Into the Woods), she nears her work on
The Broadway Album. Elsewhere, she is merely a phenomenal singer working against material or arrangements that aren't quite appropriate to her.
~William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
;)
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