Mojo Says: Not your usual Barbra LP. Oh no.
Album: Barbra Streisand...And Other Musical Instruments
Artist: Barbra Streisand
Year: 1973
Length: 34:37
Track Listing:
- Piano Practicing - 2:28
- I Got Rhythm - 1:24
- Medley: Johnny One Note/One Note Samba - 3:40
- Glad to Be Unhappy - 2:43
- People - 1:52
- Second Hand Rose - 0:16
- Don't Rain on My Parade - 3:41
- Don't Ever Leave Me - 0:42
- Monologue (Dialogue) - 0:46
- By Myself - 1:55
- Come Back to Me - 1:39
- I Never Has Seen Snow - 5:05
- Lied: Auf Dem Wasser Zu Singen - 1:30
- The World is a Concerto/Make Your Own Kind of Music - 4:00
- The Sweetest Sounds - 1:55
Favorite Tracks:
- Don't Rain on My Parade
- Medley: Johnny One Note/One Note Samba
- By Myself
- Piano Practicing (if only because the idea of Rite of Spring showing up on a Barbra Streisand album is as amusing as it is unexpected.)
Worst Tracks:
I Never Has Seen Snow is too "normal" and breaks up the mood after the album's most experimental streak of tracks.
Is it weird?:
In the context of Barbra Streisand's career, absolutely.
I Never Has Seen Snow is too "normal" and breaks up the mood after the album's most experimental streak of tracks.
Is it weird?:
In the context of Barbra Streisand's career, absolutely.
Review:
This record stands in stark contrast to literally every other album Barbra Streisand has recorded .I mean, she does have 35 of them so I admittedly haven't heard them all, but I think that's a pretty safe assumption. And Other Musical Instruments is a collection of standards and show tunes that feature experimentation so intense that some of these could easily pass as bootlegged cuts from The Mothers Of Invention the Musical (and you would not believe how much I want to travel to the alternate universe where that exists).
The album was intended to soundtrack a live 1973 TV special where most of these songs were performed, and I can only imagine the rude awakening that the average Barbs fan got when tuning into that for the first time. The wholehearted embrace of world music leads to these very familiar songs suddenly sounding radically different. Granted, some tracks are far more normal and unchanged than others (I Never Has Seen Snow, for instance), but on the whole, these songs are almost unrecognizable apart from their vocals and lyrics. Instrumentals here draw from the music of the Middle East, India, Native Americans, and on The World is a Concerto, the average American kitchen, naturally. The incredible variety of the approach to the songwriting on this album is truly impressive, however, the fact that it's a Barbra Streisand album does kind of make the whole thing feel like it's trying a little too hard to be "out there" for the sake of it. And Other Musical Instruments is a fine album, but one that works better as a novelty project than a serious work.
The album was intended to soundtrack a live 1973 TV special where most of these songs were performed, and I can only imagine the rude awakening that the average Barbs fan got when tuning into that for the first time. The wholehearted embrace of world music leads to these very familiar songs suddenly sounding radically different. Granted, some tracks are far more normal and unchanged than others (I Never Has Seen Snow, for instance), but on the whole, these songs are almost unrecognizable apart from their vocals and lyrics. Instrumentals here draw from the music of the Middle East, India, Native Americans, and on The World is a Concerto, the average American kitchen, naturally. The incredible variety of the approach to the songwriting on this album is truly impressive, however, the fact that it's a Barbra Streisand album does kind of make the whole thing feel like it's trying a little too hard to be "out there" for the sake of it. And Other Musical Instruments is a fine album, but one that works better as a novelty project than a serious work.
Grade:
7/10
Listen:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7A5Lqje4kuq0Tg6vDMaxwt
