''Walls'' is the thirty-sixth studio album by American singer and songwriter

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers awar ...

, released on November 2, 2018, by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the A ...

. The lead single " Don't Lie to Me" was written as a criticism of America's political climate amid the

presidency of Donald Trump Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...

, while the title track alludes to Trump's frequent calls for a wall at the Mexico border.

Critical reception

''Walls'' received acclaim from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, ''Walls'' has an average score of 84 based on 5 reviews. ''Walls'' was nominated for

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album is an award presented to recording artists at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Honors in several categories are presented ...

at the

62nd Annual Grammy Awards The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on January 26, 2020, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from October 1, 2018, to August 31, 2019. Al ...

. ''Year-end lists''

Commercial performance

''Walls'' debuted at number 12 on the US ''Billboard'' 200 but then dropped off the charts after a second week. ''Walls'' opened at number six on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

, selling 15,604 copies and giving Streisand her 36th top-75 album and 15th top-10 entry in the United Kingdom. In Australia ''Walls'' debuted at number seven on the

ARIA Albums Chart The ARIA Charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling songs and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA became the offici ...

Track listing

Adapted from ''

Playbill ''Playbill'' is an American monthly magazine for theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most copies of ''Playbill'' are printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the show's p ...

''.

Personnel

Adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

. *

Walter Afanasieff Walter Afanasieff (born Vladimir Nikitich Afanasyev; February 10, 1958), formerly nicknamed Baby Love in the 1980s, is an American record producer and songwriter of Russian-Chinese descent. He was a collaborator with Mariah Carey on her first ...

– arranger, keyboards, orchestral arrangements, producer, synthesizer *

Tariqh Akoni Tariqh Akoni is a performing and session guitarist and songwriter based in Los Angeles, California. He is the former Chair of the Guitar Department at the L.A. Music Academy (succeeding Frank Gambale) as well as Musical Director for multi-platinu ...

– acoustic guitar *Leo Amuedo – acoustic guitar *Annie Bosko – background vocals *Adrian Bradford – engineer *

Jorge Calandrelli Jorge Calandrelli is an Argentinian-born composer, arranger and conductor known for his work with Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Arturo Sandoval, Yo-Yo Ma, Tony Bennett, Elton John, Lady Gaga and John Legend. He has won 6 Grammy Awards and has rece ...

– orchestral arrangements * David Campbell – string arrangements *Mabvuto Carpenter – background vocals *

Desmond Child John Charles Barrett (born October 28, 1953), known professionally as Desmond Child, is an American songwriter and producer. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008. His hits as a songwriter include Kiss's " I Was Made for Lo ...

– keyboards, producer, programming *

Steve Churchyard Steve Churchyard is an English record producer, recording engineer and mixer who began his career at Sir George Martin’s AIR Studios in London. He currently resides in the United States. He has been nominated for 15 Grammy awards. In 2008 he wo ...

– orchestration recording *Tim Davis – choir director *

Nathan East Nathan Harrell East (born December 8, 1955) is an American jazz, R&B, and rock bass player and vocalist. With more than 2,000 recordings, East is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of music. East holds a Bachelor of Arts deg ...

– bass guitar *

Kenneth Edmonds Kenneth Brian Edmonds (born April 10, 1959), better known by his stage name Babyface, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He has written and produced over 26 number-one R&B hits throughout his career and has won 12 Grammy ...

– vocals *

David Foster David Walter Foster (born November 1, 1949) is a Canadian musician, composer, arranger, record producer and music executive who chaired Verve Records from 2012 to 2016. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His music career spans mor ...

– arranger, producer *Ian Fraser – arranger *Dmytro Gordon – engineer *Tyler Gordon – engineer *Mark Graham – music preparation *Keith Gretlein – engineer, programming *Missi Hale – background vocals *Jeri Heiden – design *

Russell James Russell James (born 1962 in Perth) is a fashion, celebrity and beauty photographer. Russell was born in Western Australia and spent much of his childhood moving from city to city due to his working class father. After dropping out of school at age ...

– photography *Jay Landers – executive producer, liner notes *Whitney Martin – music contractor * Michael McDonald – vocals * Vlado Meller – mastering * Shawn Murphy – orchestration recording *

Jonas Myrin Jonas Myrin is a Swedish singer, songwriter and producer based in Los Angeles, California. His solo career began in 2012 with the gold-certified song, "Day of the Battle" in Germany. Myrin won two Grammy Awards for the song " 10,000 Reasons (Bl ...

– arranger, associate producer, background vocals *Obie O'Brien – orchestration recording *J.C. Monterrosa – orchestration recording *Clay Perry – arranger, keyboards, programming *

Tim Pierce Tim Pierce (born 1959 in Albuquerque) is an American session guitarist. He has worked for artists such as Joe Cocker, Crowded House, Goo Goo Dolls, Michael Jackson, Beth Hart, Roger Waters, Alice Cooper, Johnny Hallyday, Phil Collins, and the ...

– electric guitar *Tiffany Plamer – background vocals * William Ross – adaptation, arranger, orchestral arrangements *

John Shanks John Matthew Shanks (born December 18, 1964) is an American songwriter, record producer and guitarist. Early life and education John Matthew Shanks was born in New York City. Shanks moved to Los Angeles when he was 17 years old. He was in a ban ...

– bass, guitar, keyboards, producer, programming, background vocals *Blake Slatkin – keyboards, programming *

– arranger, art direction, executive producer, primary artist, producer *Shari Sutcliffe – music contractor *Mary Webster – score coordinator *Kris Wilkinson – music contractor *

Lucy Woodward Lucy Woodward is an English-American singer-songwriter. She has recorded for Atlantic, Verve, and GroundUP and has sung background vocals for Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand, Snarky Puppy, Celine Dion, Pink Martini, Gavin DeGraw, Joe Cocker, Ch ...

– background vocals *Gina Zimmitti – music contractor

Charts

Certifications

References

External links

Barbra Archives: ''Walls'' (2018)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walls (Barbra Streisand album) 2018 albums Barbra Streisand albums Political music albums by American artists Columbia Records albums Albums produced by Walter Afanasieff Albums produced by Desmond Child Albums produced by David Foster Albums produced by John Shanks