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Date Posted: 23:25:58 02/18/06 Sat
Barry Manilow's got a No. 1 album. What gives?
By Jody Rosen/Feb. 15, 2006,
+++++++++++++++++++++++
mmJun: Did you know that both Regine and Manilow had
released albums at the same time that were both RETRO
before? Did you know both their albums had the same
song- "Bluer Than Blue." Both Regine and Manilow always
release their albums during the x'mas season. And for
some strange reason they didn't last year. Both artists
new albums were release this year nearly the same time.
Manilow's album is number one in the U.S. A Regine fan
reported that Regine's album is number one too on the
local record charts. Both albums have a song that was
originally made a hit by Elvis Presley. -Music Buzz
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHAT DA..?!
What the hell is Barry Manilow doing at No. 1 on the Billboard album
charts? I don't ask the question rhetorically. Pop critics like to
think they have a decent handle on the musical zeitgeist, but
believe me, a Barry Manilow resurgence can really upset all your
received wisdom and well-rehearsed riffs. The fact is, last week
156,000 people stampeded to stores to buy a new Manilow record and,
for a few days at least, Mary J. Blige and Kanye West and Eminem
cowered in the reeling shadows cast by Barry's blow-dried mane. It's
a comeback for the history books: Manilow last topped the charts in
1977, a stretch between No. 1's that has been bested only by a
couple of dead geniuses, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles.
Actually, there's a fairly straightforward explanation for the
Manilow revival: He's singing some very old songs. On The Greatest
Songs of the Fifties, he's taken a handful of big hits from a half-
century ago ("What a Diff'rence a Day Made," "Young at Heart"),
slathered them in string-heavy big-band arrangements, and done his
best to imitate a crooner. It's a far more toned-down act than the
one that made Manilow a huge star in the '70s, although he can't
resist turning his signature trick: the swelling half-step jumps at
the outset of the final chorus that announce things are about to get
really emotional.
In hitching his comeback hopes to a collection of song standards,
Manilow follows a trail blazed by another extravagantly moussed
older star, Rod Stewart, who has sold millions of copies of his four-
volume Great American Songbook series. The mastermind behind both
projects is Clive Davis, a music mogul with a proven genius for
channeling middlebrow taste, who correctly intuited that older
record buyers would embrace standards recorded by '70s and '80s hit-
makers. The result is a music biz boomlet, in which aging stars
hoping for a career resuscitation are resurfacing with big bands and
Café Carlyle-appropriate apparel. In recent years we've seen
standards collections by Stewart, Manilow, Carly Simon, Bette
Midler, and Cyndi Lauper, and it's a virtual certainty that several
more are currently in the works. (Coming soon to a record store near
you: Corey Hart Sings Jerome Kern.) Even rappers are getting into
the act: Who can forget The Dana Owens Album* (2004), in which Queen
Latifah rocked such old-school joints as "If I Had You" (1928)?
http://www.slate.com/id/2136336/?nav=fo
-------------------- >
"No love, no friendship can ever cross our paths without affecting
us in some way forever." How true. The same with selfishness and
untruthfulness which affect others negatively. In this world of
darkness and light, are you an agent of evil, or are you an agent of
goodness? Are you a candle blower or candle lighter? "It is better
to light one little candle than to curse the darkness." Let's all
keep in mind that one candle power is better than zero candle power.
/ ---------------------- /
regine_velasquez ˇ asia's songbird!!!!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/regine_velasquez/
/ ------------------------ /
Music Inside Buzz-Stories
http://insidebuzz.tripod.com
Read about other music stories on Barry Manilow and other
musical idols of Asia's Song Bird being posted in the
Regine Velasquez Fans Bird Nest Group and F.I.M.H. groups.
;-)
Also posted in the Ogie Alcasid fans group. SOP_Rulz
and the forum boards of our local recording artists.
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