The premise is debatable (can you really call a disc with only one Beatles song a compendium of top '60s tunes?), but the product is anything but. The success of
The Greatest Songs of the Fifties, released ten months prior to this latest exercise in musical time-travel, must have stoked Barry Manilow's interpretive skills, or else he's more a flowerchild at heart than his once overly wide lapels and disco shoes let on. Because formulaic as this disc is, it bespeaks a not easily achieved vocal mastery and a gift for gently prying a song away from its original owner. Which is to say it's better than its predecessor. Hand Manilow a Righteous Brothers tune ("You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'") and he magically minimizes its scale, making it seem more intimate still; pass him a classic made famous by both the Carpenters and Herman's Hermits ("There's a Kind of Hush"), and instead of sending his listeners off on undulating waves of nostalgia, he quietly makes them aware he should have sung it all along (no offense, Herman). "Cherish/Windy," a medley with the Association, works well, but it's the Bacharach numbers that will nudge themselves to the top of easy-listening fans' favorites lists. "This Guy's in Love with You," "What the World Needs Now is Love," and "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," memorable as the original renditions are, have been reawakened; given the Manilow spin, they become the kind of songs the whole world wants to sing.
--Tammy La Gorce More from Barry Manilow
A Christmas Gift of Love |
Ultimate Manilow |
Barry Manilow: Live (Special Edition) |
Manilow: Music and Passion (DVD) |
The Greatest Songs of the Fifties |
Singin' with the Big Bands |
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