Customer Reviews

Just for the Record (Display Box)

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3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am wowed by this 4-disc set. It is a wonderful career retrospective with a generous selection of songs from the 60s (2 discs), 70s, and 80s. Also comes with a beautiful booklet that illustrates the career history.

There are many songs never heard on this album that are excellent. No cast offs here, just great stuff. I particularly enjoyed the songs recorded at the Bon Soir -- you feel as if you are there. One can see why Barbra caught fire -- this great voice and a wonderful New York personality -- and an infectious giggle. She was the real deal and bursting with life. No wonder people loved her. A breath of fresh air.

My favorite disk is the 70s and the song "The Singer" which was never released. There is a duet with Burt Bacharach and some wonderful renditions of 70 classic songs.

Woven in with the music are award ceremonies and the famous line "Hello Gorgeous" when Barb accepted her oscar with Funny Girl. Even original Funny Girl performance live on stage. The kid is giving it all she's got even if her technique wasn't perfected at that point.

This is a wonderful retrospective on Streisand's record breaking career and a must have for any fan or newcomer to "The Greatest Star."

What a grand collection this is of the legendary Barbra Streisand, full of unreleased verisons of Barbra's classics, landmark events in her career, unreleased studio and live tracks, original demo recordings, TV appearances, never-before-released show tunes, live nightclub performances, award nights and duets with Judy Garland, Ray Charles, Neil Diamond and more. This collection is approximately 4 hours long all together, it comes with a collector's book of rare photos and a song-by-song personal commentary by Barbra. "Just For The Record" covers every song that had a important impact in Barbra's career up to the point of releasing this boxset. The collection includes Barbra's first song that she recorded at 13 years old called "You'll Never Know". It also includes live songs from her first appearances on TV shows such as "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Johnny Carson Show", "The Judy Garland Show" and many more. It also includes Barbra winning the best actress Oscar for "Funny Girl" and winning the Oscar for best song "Evergreen" which she wrote. It includes Barbra winning the 1965 Emmy for "My Name Is Barbra", Barbra singing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with Neil Diamond at the 1980 Grammy Awards. This collection also includes Barbra's famous songs most of them live versions like "A Sleepin' Bee", a live solo version of "Happy Days Are Here Again", a live "Cry Me A River" and many many more that Barbra is known for. Demos include "What Are Doing The Rest Of Your Life (duet with: Michel Legrand), "Evergreen", "Papa, Can You Hear Me?", "The Moon And I", "A Piece Of Sky" and even a score from "Nuts" that Barbra composed herself. This is a must, a absolutely for any Barbra fan.

This collection is a must have for any one who considers themselves a true Barbra Streisand fan.
From the beginning of her career to the height of the eighties, it's all here.
Truly one of the best gifts I have ever received.
There is NO one like Ms. Barbra Streisand - No One!

As a big fan of Barbra Streisand I was excited about all the previously unreleased material these 4 CDs included. However, I was unhappy with the mastering. For some reason a dozen or so tracks included a high-pitched, pulsating "dinging" noise, something so high pitched that it was easy to miss. I contacted Columbia/Sony's consumer quality control at the time back in 1991 and no one there would acknowledge the flaw. Some of the rare material is from sources that are far from optimal, however this particular intermittent pulsating sound is not due to inferior source material since it occurs on a variety of tracks. In 1998 the CD set was re-released. It still contained this problem. The noise is slight and difficult to hear, and not on every track. The clearest example of the problem is the track containing "You're the Top" because the song begins very quietly and it is easiest to hear the noise during quiet passages.

Despite this flaw the set of 4 CDs is a "must have" for any fan of Barbra Streisand. But Columbia/Sony PLEASE fix the problem on these CDs before they are re-released again.

Barbra Streisand is one of the best artist of all time. What a great job they did with ...Just for the Record. It is a musical biography. For those of us who first listened to Streisand's music in the 70's and 80's is a thrill to listen to her recordings from the 60's. In fact, the 60's part of the collection has become one my favorite cd's. I love to listen to my favorites -- The Way We Were, Evergreen, A Piece of Sky and found that I have been missing out on so many other beautiful, funny and amazing songs Streisand has performed throughout her career. Another excellent part of this collection is the dialogue from the awards and her introductions to the songs from Yentl. If you have an appreciation for true musical talent and are tired of listening to so called artist that are currently out there, this collection is perfect for you. Now, if only they would do a similar collection in DVD using the interviews and musical appeareances she has done for television. That would be wonderful, not only for her fans, but for those who will see proof of why Barbra Streisand is legendary. Amazon's service was excellent, I received the package 3 days after I purchased it.

Released as a career retrospective in 1991, this collection of rarities, never-before-available tracks, and so on is fantastic. It has some remarkable tracks that any fan shouldn't be without.

Disc one has many early 60s recordings, such as a beautiful version of "Moon River" (pre-Movie Album), "Miss Marmelstein" from her turn in I Can Get it For You Wholesale, and the highlight of the first disc, her beautifully harmonious duet with Judy Garland, "Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again." The second disc continues with the 60s, and we mostly get tracks we probably own elsewhere ("People," "Don't Rain on My Parade"), though it is interesting to hear some acceptance speeches from her Emmy and Best Actress Oscar wins. The 70s disc is probably the best disc, since it features not only wonderful never-before-released tracks, such as "The Singer," but also movie songs never available on a Barbra album, like her great cover of "You're the Top" for What's Up Doc, or the soundtrack version of "The Way We Were." The 80s disc, however, is the worst one, since it is almost all rehashed material from past albums, like "Over the Rainbow" from One Voice, or a bunch of tracks from the Broadway album. But it's still a great disc, if only for her duet with Neil Diamond at the Grammys in 1980, one of the biggest performances in the ceremony's history.

This set is a great collection, but is not for the casual fan, or the person looking to discover her. There are better best of collections out there for them. This is, in fact, a truly great retrospective of Barbra Streisand's beginning, middle, and end (though she wasn't finished just yet). All fans of the singer should have this. It isn't perfect, but there is very little bad you can say about it.

This box set has many surprises and good songs. A definitely must have for Barbra fans and a great introduction to new Barbra fans out there. Barb has been around for a few decades and she has kept her voice nicely without staying in the same stage. From the first song to the last of this compilation, one will understand why she is still around. She is a special entertainer with many talents. With the people who she collaberates with, one should understand she is not that difficult to work with. There are songs that may not be the best of hers but the booklet tells you why she didnt chose them for her album in the first place. She has made a good choice on songs, not too new but stuff that we have not heard of. It is not that those songs she put in this boxset is crap, it is just because they were not "right" for the albums. The historical and pictures are wonderful to look at. Barbra is simply a diva!

In High School, I was an insane Streisand fan. I remember having first heard her on a tinny a.m. radio on a sweltering New York summer night. She sang "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home" from her 2nd album, and the combination of her vocal control and pure emotion (not to mention the artistry of Harold Arlen), blew me away. The next day, I went down to E.J. Korvette's and spent $1.88 on the mono version (the "stereo" edition was too dear at an additional 50 cents). I got a Saturday matinee ticket for six bucks to "Funny Girl" (by this point, Streisand had already lost interest, and, more or less, walked through the role). I snapped up each new album (mostly still in mono) on the day of issue. And, on the night after my graduation, I was on a date in Central Park waiting for "A Happening" to begin. That was actually quite special. The show was about three hours, from which CBS culled about one. I wonder if the unused tapes still exist. At any rate, what drew me to Ms. Streisand in those days was a knowing innocence, and a rare attention to the true meaning of both music and lyrics of the meticulously crafted American songbook. Each of the early albums had a testimonial from one of the great songwriters (several appear on "Just for the Record" at a tribute dinner). And, it wasn't hard to see then that what they loved about her, was what I loved about her. I hadn't really looked into Sinatra much, because he was my mom's fave, so that alone was reason to avoid him during adolescence. I had a college radio show when Streisand's first "pop rock" (it certainly wasn't any kind of rock) single came in.... a justifiably forgotten thing called "Our Corner of the Night". In retrospect, that may have been when I started to lose interest. I didn't much care for Streisand's power ballads and duets. Of course, having creatively exhausted the standards, it made sense to try to move on and broaden her audience. I loved "Since I Fell for You", "Evergreen", "Memory", moments in the Gibb collaboration, and I admired her return to basics in the first Broadway album. But, I started to hear a sameness, a tendancy to similar vocal histrionics in a lot of numbers. The stillness and ease reflected in many of the early albums seemed all but gone, replaced by a certain shrillness. The voice was, amazingly, still there (and still is today). What "Just for the Record" does is confirm that it was all calculation from the very beginning. Of course it was, it had to be. She is a detail freak and a control freak. But, so what? So was Sinatra and Sarah. Der Bingle was apparently a complete fiction. Crosby played by Bing. Still, among the undeniable undiscovered gems on this set, there's a reinforcement of someone who will never sing one note when ten will do, someone who, in her later years, did not always choose the best material, someone who projects a less than attractive self-absorbtion. For those who don't mind coming along for that ride, "Just for the Record" may be just for you. For others, not so much. Unlike Sinatra, whom I've come to love, the calculation here shows, and, the music often becomes well nigh unlistenable. I remember watching her receive her Kennedy Center award last year. She seemed so imperious in her Royal Box, looking down at the likes of Beyonce, as they, through performance, tried to show what she meant to them. Streisand did not radiate joy that night. Still, I'm happy that she seems to have found her man, and I'll always remember what she meant to me in those early years. But, I can no longer count myself a fan.

If you want to listen to just her songs, don't buy this set. It's nothing but Barbara Streisand running her mouth!
Play the music and shut up, Barbara!