review of Barry Gibb album Now Voyager, Olivia duets on Face To Face
BARRY GIBB: Now Voyager. Bагту Gibb (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Shine Shine; Face to Face; Fine Line; I Am Your Driver; and seven others. MCA MCA-5506 $8.98, MCAC-5506 $8.98.
Performance: Slick
Recording: Expensive
Every aspect of this album is so expensively glossy, so tailored to a known audience, that it might have been produced by a computer at the Harvard Business School. The star is Barry Gibb, of the Bee Gees, who wrote or co-wrote all of the songs and who performs them with all the authority, neatness, and accuracy of a printout in a fancy type face.
His single duet with Olivia New-ton-John, Face to Face, has the comm-nicative fire of two store-window mannequins eyeing each other. On his own in the rest of the album, he radiates the oily assurance of a guy convinced he has the Formula. He doesn’t.
P.R.