Barbra Streisand - "Stoney End" (1971)

I can't say I didn't try, but perhaps my instinctive bias against Barbra Streisand was too much to overcome, 4.5 star review from allmusic.com aside. Stoney End finds Streisand in a pop-rock, singer-songwriter vein, covering songs by artists like Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, and Randy Newman. She performs ably enough, as does her backing band, I suppose. Yet I find that her instinct for theatrical schmaltz is a poor fit for the kind of songs she is singing, and I have professed over and over again my suspicion of the singer-songwriter era begat by Dylan. So although it all sounded pleasant, and I wouldn't call it awful, I didn't find anything to grab onto either. Blue bin.