Transcript
Barbra Streisand (0:00)
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Chris Melanphy (0:17)
Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanphy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One Series. On our last episode, we walked through the first two decades of Barbra Streisand's career. How she emerged as a Broadway star, movie star and, yes, pop star virtually simultaneously, and how she struggled to adapt to contemporary music before finally finding an approach in the mid-70s that consistently generated hits. We are now at the end of the 70s. Disco is on the wane, but Barbra is about to score her biggest pop album ever by teaming with a leading disco singer and songwriter. By 1980, the leading acts of disco were all finding ways to pivot their careers amidst the disco backlash. Streisand's friend Don, a summer not long after their hit duet, pivoted toward a fusion of dance pop and synthesized rock on her 1980 album The Wanderer. Chic, the hit making disco group led by Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards that had revolutionized dance music and even helped launch hip hop in the closing months of 1979, Increasingly turned their attention toward production and songwriting for other acts. Chic's greatest 1980 triumph was producing and writing the album Diana, the transformative post disco blockbuster by Motown legend Diana Ross. You might say the Chic approach was also the strategy being pursued by Barry Robin and Morris Gibb, the Bee Geese. They scored the last of their string of Hot 100 number ones in the summer of 79, Which was around the time Barry Gibb met Barbra Streisand. Impressed by Barry's hit making skill, Barbara asked him if he would write some songs for her next album. Gibb upped the ante. He offered to produce the entire album and write all of the songs with his brothers. All Streisand had to do was show up and sing. Even more so than Chic with the Diana LP. Streisand's 1980 album would be, in essence, a Bee Gees album, fronted and personified by Barbra Streisand. The hallmarks of the Bee Gees production style were all over the lp, but it was lush, urbane pop, not exactly dance music. Barry Gibb had cleverly adapted his style for a singer with a titanic voice and an audience that was now allergic to Falsetto vocals and Studio 54 beats. It turned out Barry Gibb could do 80s diva pop as adeptly as he'd done disco.
Barbra Streisand (4:41)
You know you're the light, I am.
Chris Melanphy (4:47)
The Streisand album didn't have a title until near the end of recording. When Streisand asked Gibb for one more uptempo song, Barry wrote one with both Robin and Morris. The album's only song penned by all three Gibb brothers, a bop with a yacht rock style bounce, and Barry sang it with Barbara as a duet. The song and the album would be called Guilty. In a remarkable promotional move for Guilty's album cover, Streisand photographed herself in a hug with Barry Gibb, both of them clad in disco era white. Rather than hide the involvement of the lead Bee Gee, she was showcasing him even though her name was the one above the title. For the first single, Columbia went with the LP's Sultriest Song, a pseudo feminist tone poem co written by Barry and Robin Gibbs that Streisand found lyrically inscrutable. But nonetheless, she sang the hell out of it. It was called Woman in. And it was an instant smash. The fastest breaking solo single of Barbra Streisand's career. Within two months, Woman in Love was on top of the Hot 100. The very same week the Guilty album reached number one on the album chart. Even for Barbra, this was exceptional. Her biggest chart success not accompanied by a movie, movie, Broadway show or TV telecast, Guilty blew up. Based on the songs and Barbara's own imperial pop profile, Not only did Guilty become Streisand's top selling studio album ever, quintuple platinum sales in the US alone and a reported 15 million sold worldwide, it also generated the most hits after Woman in Love. Barbara and Barry's Guilty duet reached number three.