Guilty (Barbra Streisand album)

1980 studio album by Barbra Streisand

Guilty is the twenty second studio album by American singer Barbra Streisand released on September 23, 1980, by Columbia Records. It was produced by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees and his group's regular production team of Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. Streisand released a sequel to this album, Guilty Pleasures, in 2005, also produced and largely written by Gibb. Both albums can also be considered partial collaboration albums, since Streisand not only performed two duets with Gibb, but Gibb could also be heard as a background vocalist in a few other songs solely by the artist herself, along with the fact that both singers were on the cover for both albums issued. The album sold over 15 million copies worldwide.

After the huge success of the Bee Gees in the late 1970s, Gibb began to focus on writing and producing songs. Streisand approached Gibb to write songs for her new album—initially he was going to write or co write only half the album, but the process went so well he ended up doing the entire album. All the songs were written expressly for Streisand except "The Love Inside", which Gibb wrote over a year before. Two songs ("Secrets" and "Carried Away") were written for the album but not used. Both appear on The Guilty Demos, which features Gibb singing the songs he wrote for Streisand. The outtake songs would later be recorded and released by Elaine Paige and Olivia Newton John respectively.

The lead single "Woman in Love" became one of the most successful songs of Streisand's music career and spent a total of three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Two other singles were released, which also peaked within the top ten on Billboard Hot 100: the title track, a duet between Streisand and Gibb, won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1981, released as a second single for the album, and became an instant hit, peaking at number three, and "What Kind of Fool", another duet with Gibb, reached number ten for three weeks. The fourth single, "Promises", a more disco oriented track released in May 1981, reached as high as number 48 in both the U. S. and Canada. It was a much bigger Adult Contemporary hit in both nations, reaching number eight and number five, respectively. This song was also released on Streisand's first commercially released 12" single as a solo artist following her 1979 duet with Donna Summer, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", and two promotional singles released for "Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over)" in 1975, and "The Main Event/Fight" in 1979.

The album received favorable reviews from music critics. William Ruhlmann from AllMusic wrote that the album is one of the singer's "least characteristic" albums and that "it sounds like a post Saturday Night Fever Bee Gees album with vocals by Streisand." Robert Christgau gave the album a C+ and criticized Streisand's vocals ("most of the time she oversings") and that "when she dramatizes a soap like "Life Story," the mismatch is ridiculous". Stephen Holden from Rolling Stone gave the album a favorable review and wrote that "while Guilty is a romantic entertainment with no ambitions beyond making billions of hearts flutter and earning millions of dollars, it's also as beautifully crafted a piece of ear candy as I've heard in years". He also wrote that "Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb's album may not be particularly nutritious, but it sure is tasty."

Guilty became Streisand's best selling album to date internationally, with sales of 15 million copies worldwide as well as spawning several hit singles.

Guilty was re released on DualDisc on 30 August 2005 by Sony Legacy Recordings in advance of its sequel project, Guilty Pleasures and also commemorated its 25th anniversary. The re release featured remastered audio, new interviews with Streisand and Gibb, two live performances from 1986 and a photo gallery of the original photo session for Guilty by Mario Casilli.

Certification Table Entry|region=Worldwide|nocert=yes|salesamount=15,000,000|salesref= Recorded in 1979 all of the songs were written that same year except "The Love Inside" which was written in 1978 during work on Spirits Having Flown. All songs feature Barry Gibb's falsetto voice, except "What Kind of Fool" where he used his natural voice. The songs "Carried Away" and "Secrets" were not used by Streisand but instead recorded by Elaine Paige with only "Secrets" being issued on her 1981 self titled album. Olivia Newton John recorded and released "Carried Away" on her Physical album, also in 1981. The demo version of "Never Give Up" remains unreleased.