Date: Nov 24, 1979
Weeks: 2
Oh no. Not another 1930s-style Barbra Streisand soft song. Oh no! Suddenly it turned into a repetitive Donna Summer disco song. It's the worst of both worlds. I've disliked both of their songs separately, and now I have to endure one where they mix their styles. How am I going to get through this?
Okay, okay. Start by saying something positive. Well, in the soft part of the song, Summer's part is quite good. The 70s disco music that I'm used to hearing from her doesn't do her voice justice. Of course, that's kind of ruined by Streisand doing the same fake-sounding oversinging thing I've complained about before.
No, stay positive! The disco part of the song actually seems more compatible with Streisand's singing style. The bold music seems to actually match it. She should make this kind of music more often. Then again, she even manages to find ways to overwhelm the frantic disco music.
Okay, okay, what else. Well, the lyrics seem to be feminist. "Enough is enough is enough." Great message for women in tough relationships: get out. Of course, the song kind of undermines that when it tries to explain what's so wrong about the guy and comes up with "My love life is boring me to tears." Okay, but maybe it's a song about having the self-awareness to understand when a relationship is over. No, the song says "Pack his raincoat, show him out."
It's really two songs that have failed to properly integrate. One is a soft song that laments the sadness of a relationship that has gotten stale and just isn't exciting any more. The other is about a woman who has been wronged. They don't quite go together correctly.
Musically, each song is pretty mediocre. The first half is piano and strings, and resists the temptation to add too much additional sound to it, but is kind of plain and unexciting. The second half sounds a lot like "Hot Stuff" (#465). It's okay, but has the usual 70s problems of adding too many strings and not enough guitars.
The best part of the song is probably the bridge, when the song gets quiet except for the bongos driving the song forward. There is an extended version of the song that extends this bridge, and I think I like the extended version better for focusing on the best part of the song. Or maybe I've just taken the whole idea of staying positive too far and found the part that annoys me least.
My verdict: Don't like it. It's like they took two songs I didn't like and stuck them together with tape and glue.
I had the same reaction to the disco starting up in this song that you did in the first song you reviewed: Like the boring song suddenly became a different song that's way more fun.
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