{"id":4081,"date":"2011-11-01T18:22:52","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T01:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4081"},"modified":"2011-11-01T18:22:52","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T01:22:52","slug":"barry-manilow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/11\/barry-manilow\/","title":{"rendered":"BARRY MANILOW"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>BARRY MANILOW<\/h2>\n

The dangers of pop stardom inspire his first new songs in a decade<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Maybe Barry Manilow\u2019s latest should include a thank-you to Britney Spears. \u201cI was watching her being chased by the paparazzi,\u201d Manilow says. \u201cThis young, talented singer just trying to live her life, but being followed everywhere. I thought, \u2018Is this the price of fame now?\u2019\u201d The question inspired his first album of all-new material in a decade, penned with lyricist Enoch \u201cNick\u201d Anderson: a cautionary song cycle called 15 Minutes<\/em>. Manilow fans may be surprised by the uncharacteristically cranked-up guitars and funky grooves. \u201cIt\u2019s the riskiest thing I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d he declares. \u201cA concept album with music out of my safety zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

What inspired this album? <\/strong><\/p>\n

For the last eight years I\u2019ve been making these albums with [label executive] Clive Davis\u2019 guidance. He thinks a person of my age with my reputation would not be able to sell an original album. He pointed to my contemporaries like Sting, Elton John and Joni Mitchell, who were making original albums and none were selling. So we started doing this series of covers albums and it went on for eight years. Clive was right about the sales, but I really missed songwriting.<\/p>\n

Did you ever seek fame?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I never went after fame as a performer. All I cared about was the music. So when \u201cMandy\u201d [1974] hit, it threw me for a loop. I was grateful, but I was very unprepared for everything that came along with fame.<\/p>\n

What did you learn?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The main thing is to keep family and old friends around you. About four years into my career I found myself at a beach house in Florida and realized everybody in that house was on my payroll. I couldn\u2019t figure out where my old friends were, where my old life went. Everything had changed. It was thrilling, but I was very unhappy. I had to make a choice as to what life I wanted. I chose my old life\u2014and from that moment on, I\u2019ve tried to balance the new, crazy life with the old life as a musician.<\/p>\n

How do you and Nick work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The hard part of writing for me is the idea. \u201cWhat are you going to write about?\u201d Even just a love song. What\u2019s it going to be about? That\u2019s what I\u2019ve gone through my whole career. This one, we were not only writing songs, we were writing a whole concept. I chose Nick to do this because he\u2019s a fantastic lyricist, especially when it comes to writing stories about situations and characters. We\u2019d talk each idea down for weeks, then go our separate ways and write the song.<\/p>\n

How has the internet changed things?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The veil between fan and artist is disappearing, and the magic is going away. You get out of your car or have a roast-beef sandwich, and everybody knows. Years ago there were major stars, and nobody knew anything <\/em>about their lives. We were just excited to watch them work and guess about their next move. It helped preserve the magic. These days it\u2019s too easy to get to performers. It is what it is, but I feel like something has been lost.<\/p>\n

Any advice for aspiring artists?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of young people today say, \u201cI want to be famous,\u201d and that\u2019s the be-all and end-all. But if you\u2019re doing this for the money or applause or fame, look out. Do it because you believe in it, because you can\u2019t not do it. You\u2019ll have a better chance of having a happy life.<\/p>\n

\u2013Bill DeMain<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I really missed songwriting. I needed to challenge myself, to scare myself.\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BARRY MANILOW The dangers of pop stardom inspire his first new songs in a decade Maybe Barry Manilow\u2019s latest should include a thank-you to Britney Spears. \u201cI was watching her being chased by the paparazzi,\u201d Manilow says. \u201cThis young, talented singer just trying to live her life, but being followed everywhere. I thought, \u2018Is this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[2748,2682,970],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4083,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions\/4083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}