The Way We Were (1974)

The Way We Were is the fifteenth studio album recorded by American singer Barbra Streisand. The album was released in January 1974, preceded by the commercial success of its lead single "The Way We Were" first released in September 1973.

Three additional songs were newly recorded for the album, while six of the tracks salvaged unreleased material from previous Streisand projects. Following the distribution of a soundtrack album for the eponymous 1973 film, Columbia added a caption to Streisand's LP (Featuring the Hit Single The Way We Were and All in Love Is Fair) in order to minimize confusion between the two albums.

Covering a wide array of themes, Streisand sings about recovering relationships, social awareness, and love in general: a contemporary pop album blended with her signature vocal style. Streisand's production team included Tommy LiPuma and Wally Gold, while Marty Paich contributed to the title track.

The lead single topped the charts in both Canada and the United States, where it became the top-selling single of 1974. The second single "All in Love Is Fair" was released in March 1974 and also charted in the two countries.

The album received generally favorable reviews from music critics, who praised Streisand's vocals and found the record capable of being extremely successful. Commercially, The Way We Were topped the Billboard 200 in the United States and reached the top ten on album charts in Australia and Canada. It also entered the charts in Japan and the United Kingdom. The album has since been certified 2× Platinum in the United States by the RIAA.

Background and release

The concept for the record first developed in late 1973, following the success of "The Way We Were", which was written specifically for the 1973 film of the same title starring Streisand and Robert Redford. American composer and producer Marvin Hamlisch was commissioned to write the melody for the track, which he found to be hugely challenging due to Streisand's demands. She had wanted him to produce the composition in minor key, but he instead wrote it in major key due to his fear that the song's lyrics would be revealed too quickly to the listener. According to the liner notes of her 1991 greatest hits album Just for the Record, "The Way We Were", "All in Love is Fair", "Being at War with Each Other", and "Something So Right" were the only tracks specifically recorded and created for the album. The majority of the project's material consisted of demos and recordings from Streisand's recording sessions with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for an unreleased album titled The Singer. Both "The Best Thing You've Ever Done" and "Summer Me, Winter Me" were previously released together as a non-album single by Streisand in April 1970, and were originally intended for inclusion on the official soundtrack to her 1970 film The Owl and the Pussycat.

Recording sessions for the album took place at United-Western Recorders in Los Angeles between September 1969 and December 1973, while the mixing was performed at Hollywood Sound during that same time period. "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" and "My Buddy"/"How About Me" were the first two songs recorded, while "Being at War with Each Other", "Something So Right", and "All in Love Is Fair" were the final three to be completed. Al Schmitt handled the engineering and mixing aspects for the finished tracks, while Doug Sax mastered the pieces at The Mastering Lab, also in Los Angeles. Streisand and Columbia Records released The Way We Were on January 1, 1974, as her fifteenth studio album overall, and first since 1973's Barbra Streisand…and Other Musical Instruments. However, Columbia switched the title of the album at the last minute to Featuring the Hit Single The Way We Were and All in Love Is Fair in order to distinguish Streisand's record from the 1974 soundtrack of the same title with the same release date. The same label issued this version as an 8-track cartridge in 1974, with a differing track listing: both "Something So Right" and "Summer Me, Winter Me" are broken into two separate parts increasing the number of tracks on the record from ten to twelve. The album was later released in CD and digital formats on February 5, 2008.