CRATE-DIG DUSTY: Barbra Streisand, Guilty

Her voice was still a thrill, swooping and soaring over faint R&B grooves and gossamer pop melodies. The union between Barbra Streisand, the ultimate diva of schmaltz, and Barry Gibb, one third of the glittery disco siblings the Bee Gees, seemed like a recipe for blah. But the result, 1980's Guilty, stands as Babs' best mainstream pop album.

I've long admired Streisand's voice, one of the most glorious and celebrated in pop. But I'm far from a die-hard fan. For most of her career, the Brooklyn native made no concessions to the styles of her generation. In the '60s as her contemporaries re-invigorated rock and soul, she belted hoary showtunes and treacly ballads. She made dozens of these albums and sold them by the truckload. It wasn't until well into the '70s that she modernized her style a bit.

Streisand jumped on the disco bandwagon and closed the decade with a campy duet with the genre's queen, Donna Summer. "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)" sailed to No. 1 and went platinum. Streisand built on the momentum the next year when she went into the studio with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, the most successful group of the disco era. But by 1980, the pulsing rhythms and velvety strings of disco were supplanted by more streamlined sounds.

Gibb surrounded Streisand with airy, economical arrangements that would have been at home on any Bee Gees album from the period. The production was soft rock at its best: glossy and seamless with a hint of tension and drama. And nobody underscores tension and drama in a lyric like Barbra Streisand, but she didn't overdo it. "Woman in Love," a huge hit, is a supremely crafted ballad with a nice shift in key just before the bridge, which strengthens the emotional pull of the song. 

The biggest hit off the album was the title track, a duet between Barry and Babs, which also won a Grammy. It's one of the best singles of the era: a bit naughty (at least for Barbra Streisand) and effortless. The song, my all-time favorite Streisand cut, carries a smooth R&B touch. It's the funkiest Barbra has ever gotten. And the vocal chemistry she shares with Barry is sexy. Same is true on "What Kind of Fool," another duet with Barry and my second all-time favorite Streisand cut. The two really could have gone overboard with the melodrama, but they didn't. The stratospheric high note Streisand hits midsong feels like a lovely surprise each time I play this track -- and I've played it thousands of times.

Guilty, which sported a sexy white cover shot of Barry holding Barbra, topped the pop charts and became the Oscar winner's biggest-selling album. Twenty-five years later, she and Barry reunited on Guilty Pleasures, which featured another nice cover shot of the two, this time in black. That album was a pleasant return to form for the two and is another strong mainstream pop effort in Streisand's deep catalog. But it didn't surpass the magic they shared 25 years earlier.

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