''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' is the first

greatest hits album A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be crea ...

recorded by American vocalist

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List ...

. It was released on January 1, 1970, by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. The record is a compilation consisting of 11 commercially successful singles from the singer's releases in the 1960s, with a majority of them being

cover songs In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or Sound recording and reproduction, recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referr ...

. The songs on ''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' originally appeared on one of the singer's eight previous albums and span in release from 1963 to 1968. It contains her most commercially successful tracks, including her first ''Billboard'' Hot 100 top ten single "

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

" and top 40 entry "Second Hand Rose". The album was distributed on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

in 1986 and rereleased under the title ''The Hits'' in 2006. Well received by

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

, ''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' received a five star rating from ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

''. It was also praised by

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

's William Ruhlmann, who found the album crucial to reinventing Streisand's career. The album charted in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, peaking at numbers 17, 44, and 32, respectively. It was later certified double Platinum by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) for shipments of two million copies. The album also received a Gold certification in Australia. A second compilation consisting of Streisand's hits from the 1970s, was released in 1978 and titled ''

Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits Volume 2 ''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits Volume 2'' is the second greatest hits album recorded by American vocalist Barbra Streisand. It was released on November 15, 1978 by Columbia Records. The album is a compilation consisting of ten commercially ...

''.

Background and release

''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' was released on January 1, 1970, through

's record label,

. A retrospective collection, it contains 11 singles from the singer's first decade in the recording industry, ranging from "

My Coloring Book "My Coloring Book" is a song written by Fred Ebb and John Kander. First performed by Sandy Stewart in 1962 on the television program ''The Perry Como Kraft Music Hall'', she was one of the first artists to record the work in 1962 when it was rele ...

" (1963) to "

Happy Days Are Here Again "Happy Days Are Here Again" is a 1929 song with music by Milton Ager and lyrics by Jack Yellen. The song is a standard that has been interpreted by various artists. It appeared in the 1930 film '' Chasing Rainbows'' and was the campaign song for ...

" (1968). The material was recorded between 1963 and 1968 and originally included on five of her studio albums, the two '' Funny Girl'' recordings (

original cast album A cast recording is a recording of a stage musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording or OCR, as the name implies, features the voices of the sho ...

and

film soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

), and her first live album – ''

A Happening in Central Park ''A Happening In Central Park'' is the first live album by Barbra Streisand. It was recorded at a live concert in Central Park in New York in June 1967 in front of an audience of 125,000 people. The special aired on CBS channel in 1968, with sele ...

'' (1968). Featuring her most commercially successful songs, the album features one ''Billboard'' Hot 100 top ten single ("

"), one top 40 single ("Second Hand Rose"), and seven of Streisand's lower-charting releases: "Free Again", "Gotta Move", "He Touched Me", " My Man", "Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long", and "Why Did I Choose You". The compilation also included three non-charting songs – "

Don't Rain on My Parade "Don't Rain on My Parade" is a popular song from the 1964 musical '' Funny Girl''. It was also featured in the 1968 movie version of the musical. The song was written by Bob Merrill and Jule Styne. Both the movie and stage versions feature Barbra ...

", "Happy Days Are Here Again", and "My Coloring Book". The version of "Happy Days Are Here Again" that appears on ''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' was recorded live during her A Happening in Central Park concert in 1968. The album's 11 tracks were produced by a variety of musicians, including

Mike Berniker Michael Berniker (June 30, 1935 – July 25, 2008) was an American record producer who was recognized with nine Grammy Awards over the course of his career for his work on albums with such performers as Perry Como, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, Jo ...

Jack Gold Jacob M. "Jack" Gold (28 June 1930 – 9 August 2015) was a British film and television director. He was part of the Kitchen sink realism, British realist tradition which followed the Free Cinema movement. Career Jacob M. Gold was born in ...

, Robert Mersey, Ettore Stratta, and Warren Vincent. The compilation was also printed on 8-track cartridges where it was distributed with the same track listing in a revised order. On January 26, 1986, ''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' was released for the first time on CD. Since its first appearance on CDs, it has been reissued on several occasions. In 2006,

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

and

BMG Rights Management BMG Rights Management GmbH (also known simply as BMG) is an international music company based in Berlin, Germany. It combines the activities of a music publisher and a record label. BMG was founded in October 2008 after Bertelsmann sold its ...

repackaged the album under the name ''The Hits'', featuring the same track listing and similar front artwork. A second compilation consisting of Streisand's hits from the 1970s, was released in 1978 and aptly titled ''

''.

Critical reception

''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' received praise from

. William Ruhlmann from

appreciated Streisand's decision to release a greatest hits album as he felt the singer's "career was in decline" and in need of improvement; he also favored the album's live rendition inclusion of "Happy Days Are Here Again", which he considered to be one of the best songs on her debut album, ''

The Barbra Streisand Album ''The Barbra Streisand Album'' is the debut album by Barbra Streisand, released February 25, 1963, on Columbia Records, catalogue CL 2007 in mono and CS 8807 in stereo. It peaked at #8 on the Billboard pop albums chart, and has been certified a g ...

'' (1963). Concluding, Ruhlmann wrote: "For casual fans,

he album He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

made for a good sampling of Streisand's most prominent '60s work." As part of ''

''s ''The New Rolling Stone Record Guide'', released in 1983, they rated the collection a five out of five stars rating. Streisand's second volume from 1978 and ''

Guilty Guilty or The Guilty may refer to: * Guilt (emotion), an experience that occurs when a person believes they have violated a moral standard Law *Culpability, the degree to which an agent can be held responsible for action or inaction *Guilt (law) ...

'' from 1980 also achieved the same status.

Commercial performance

''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' reached the

record chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often ...

s in three countries. In the United States, the compilation debuted at number 77 on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart for the week ending February 28, 1970, while also serving as the week's highest new entry. During its fifth week on the chart, it peaked at number 32. ''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' spent a total of 30 weeks on the ''Billboard'' 200. It was certified Gold by the

for shipments of 500,000 copies on May 4, 1971, and by November 21, 1986, the record had been certified double Platinum for shipments of two million albums. On the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

, the compilation peaked at number 44, where it became Streisand's second entry altogether, immediately following her sixth studio album, '' My Name Is Barbra, Two...'' (1965), which peaked at number six. Elsewhere, the album achieved its highest position in Canada, where it peaked at number 17 on the official Top Albums chart compiled by ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

''. Although the compilation did not chart in Australia, the

Australian Recording Industry Association The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) is a trade association representing the Australian recording industry which was established in the 1970s by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing th ...

(ARIA) certified ''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits'' Gold in 2000, signifying shipments of at least 35,000 copies.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits''. * Barbra Streisand vocals *

production *

Don Costa Dominick P. "Don" Costa (June 10, 1925 – January 19, 1983) was an American conductor and record producer. He discovered singer Paul Anka and worked on several hit albums by Frank Sinatra, including ''Sinatra and Strings'' and ''My Way''. C ...

arranger, conductor *

production * Frank Laico recording engineer *

Michel Legrand Michel Jean Legrand (; 24 February 1932 – 26 January 2019) was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz pianist. Legrand was a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many son ...

arranger, conductor *

Peter Matz Peter Matz (November 6, 1928 – August 9, 2002) was an American musician, composer, arranger and conductor. His musical career in film, theater, television and studio recording spanned fifty years, and he worked with a number of prominent ...

arranger, conductor * Robert Mersey production * Lawrence Schiller cover photo * Ettore Stratta production * Warren Vincent production , sound supervisor * Stan Weiss recording engineer

Charts

Certifications

References

Footnotes

Sources

External links

*
Barbra Archives - ''Greatest Hits'' (1970)
{{Authority control 1970 greatest hits albums Albums arranged by Don Costa Albums arranged by Michel Legrand Albums arranged by Peter Matz Albums conducted by Don Costa Albums conducted by Michel Legrand Albums conducted by Peter Matz Albums produced by Mike Berniker Barbra Streisand compilation albums Columbia Records compilation albums