The revisionist take on the Rat Pack's razor-witted King of Cool reveals a Dean Martin who was considerably more complex than the Titan of Tipplers legend; a man who would just as soon retire to his room with a tumbler of milk to watch a TV Western than prowl the Strip with his famous cohorts. That sublime, preternatural indifference is both underscored and belied with dizzying regularity on this good 30-track overview of Martin's singing career. The breezy hits "That's Amore" and "Volare" underscored his public staying power when many counted him out in the face of a surging 1950s youth market. He repeated the feat again with trademark effortlessness a decade later to knock no less than the Beatles off the top of the charts with the unlikely, if inviting schmaltz of "Everybody Loves Somebody." Ever informed by his warm, deceptive vocal ease, Martin's rich signature tunes are well-represented here. But the collection also spans enough lovable kitsch ("Mambo Italiano," "Little Old Wine Drinker Me") and unabashed romantic yearning ("Innamorata," "Send Me the Pillow You Dream On") to deepen the compelling mystery of one of pop music's most enduring ciphers. --Jerry McCulley

Never mind the project's odd couple, "He's got a girlfriend; so does she" marketing shuck. This is a musical love affair in all its splendor. Produced by the seemingly chameleonic producer T Bone Burnett (who previously revived traditional bluegrass with spectacular success on O Brother, Where Art Thou?), the septuagenarian legend and his unlikely contemporary foil affectionately court a dozen songs from the Louis Armstrong repertoire with the warmth and natural grace that have been a deceptively effortless Bennett trademark for 50-plus years. The pair kick proceedings off with a playful, irony-free "Exactly Like You," then perform a tender vocal waltz across both the ages and the masterful, sympathetic orchestrations of the late Peter Matz, one of Bennett's longtime collaborators. But it's on the more melancholy performances, like "If We Never Meet Again," "I'm Confessin'," and the Armstrong perennials "Wonderful World" and "Lucky Old Sun," that the pair tap into something akin to timeless musical telepathy. Her own talents hardly in need of burnishing, lang invests the project with some gratifying new smokiness and is rewarded with a postgraduate course in saloon singing for the ages. It's an album that begs the best kind of question: When do we get an encore? --Jerry McCulley

Even in the face of epochal success, it's tempting to ponder what Barbra Streisand might have accomplished had she not spread herself across so many diverse entertainment media; so much ambition, so little time. This collection of 19 Streisand duets chronicles collaborations with Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland at one end of the scale and Don Johnson at the other. It finds the singer dabbling--if, as her bluesy miscue with Ray Charles on "Crying Time" argues, not necessarily triumphing--in styles she largely eschewed elsewhere in her career. Still, her unlikely collaborations with Barry Gibb ("Guilty," "What Kind of Fool") and Donna Summer ("No More Tears (Enough Is Enough") during the disco era scored her some of the biggest successes of her career, ample proof that with the right chemistry, Streisand could be as powerful a pop music chameleon as she was a diva. New recordings with veteran Barry Manilow (the warm, low-key "I Won't Be the One to Let You Go") and Josh Groban (David Foster's overwrought "All I Know of Love") supplement recordings that stretch from the '60s kitsch-a-go-go of Harold Arlen's "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" across five decades of Streisand's unparalleled career. --Jerry McCulley

First they went platinum...Now they're going green. Your best loved music in its simplest form. 20 best-selling "Greatest Hits" & "Best of" collections now available in a new eco-friendly package. 1CD in card wallet packaging - no plastic, no booklet - just great music! Booklets are available online through a unique URL on the package.

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD<br><b>Artist: MATHIS,JOHNNY
Title: 16 MOST REQUESTED SONGS
Street Release Date: 01/01/1987
Domestic<br><b>Genre: VOCAL

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: STREISAND,BARBRA
Title: COLLECTION GREATEST HITS
Street Release Date: 10/03/1989<br><Domestic or Import: Domestic
Genre: VOCAL

<em>A Star Is Born