After three albums related to television specials and one of French songs,
Simply Streisand was
Barbra Streisand's first "regular" new album since
People three years earlier and her first new release of any kind in a year. (Before, her albums came regularly every six months.) By now, the singer was spending her time in Hollywood shooting movies, and the music scene had moved heavily into rock, developments that made this a perfunctory set and one released into an indifferent climate; unlike her previous eight albums,
Simply Streisand missed the Top Ten. But it isn't that bad.
Streisand is not an accomplished performer of classic pop standards like "My Funny Valentine" and "More Than You Know," largely because she seems too intimidated by the material to put an individual stamp on it, but she is a great singer, and if arranger
Ray Ellis' charts lack the invention of
Peter Matz's, they are conventionally competent. If this were the only
Streisand album you ever heard, you'd still think she was good. It's only in comparison to what went before that it seems mediocre. ~ William Ruhlmann