Released November 5, 1996 Recorded 1996 | Format CD single | |
Writer(s) Barbra StreisandBryan AdamsMarvin HamlischRobert John "Mutt" Lange | ||
"I Finally Found Someone" is a song duet from 1996 with Canadian artist Bryan Adams and American artist Barbra Streisand. The song was part of the soundtrack of Streisand's self-directed movie The Mirror Has Two Faces and was nominated for an Oscar. It reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #2 on the Hot Adult Contemporary chart. "I Finally Found Someone" gave Streisand her first significant hit in almost a decade and her first top 10 hit on the Hot 100 (and first gold single) since 1981. The song was included on an Australian issue of Adams's album, 18 Til I Die.
Contents
The CD single is unique for Streisand fans as it contains a rare Spanish-language version of her 1976 song "Evergreen". It also included a solo song by Adams, the previous single "Let's Make a Night to Remember."
Production
Barbra Streisand told The Los Angeles Times in 1996: "I wrote the love theme, the main love theme, then Marvin wrote a bridge to it, and that was going to be our song. Then David Foster had the idea that I should sing the duet with Bryan Adams. Bryan played our track and heard me humming and fell in love with this little theme that I wrote, and then he and his producer Mutt Lange wrote a counter melody based on the track that I sent him. And they wrote the lyrics. So that's how that happened. I don't think his record company wanted him to sing with me...because I'm more traditional, and I haven't had a hit since I don't know when.”
A video clip was made of the single, which consisted of promotional shots of the pair and clips from the film, as well as documentary shots of Streisand directing.
The song was played during the end credits of the 1996 film The Mirror Has Two Faces, which Streisand directed.
Upon Hamlisch's death, Adams tweeted "We co-wrote the Oscar- nominated song, 'I Finally Found Someone' (a No. 8 Hot 100 Adams- Streisand duet for her 1996 film The Mirror Has Two Faces). He was an amazing musician-composer and will be missed."
69th Annual Academy Awards
The academy had originally wanted Streisand to sing "I Finally Found Someone" and asked her, however Streisand declined the opportunity to perform the song at the Oscar ceremony. Various publications speculated that Streisand had snubbed the Academy due to her film not being nominated for Best Picture. Natalie Cole was asked to step in to replace her but she became sick just before the show. As a result Streisand offered to resume her role, but Oscar producers had already asked Celine Dion to do it instead. Streisand had been told that Dion had already started rehearsing the song along with Because You Loved Me, which she was also set to perform. The director of the Oscars, Louis Horvitz, said that “Barbra called us after saying no several times, but the ship had sailed”. Meanwhile, Streisand said that Dion would “be wonderful” and that “she can have the butterflies, not me". Streisand ended up taking a bathroom break while Dion performed the song, which led to press speculation of Streisand's divaness and the two singers feuding at the ceremony. Billboard would describe this event as a "faux media scandal". Nevertheless, the singer later apologised and claimed that the performance schedule was not made clear on the program. The Record said Streisand's decision not to perform despite being in the audience was an "especially strange development". The pair met during a commercial of the show, wherein Streisand inveted her to sing a duet, a project that ultimately became Tell Him, which gave her a second Grammy nomination in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category for the 1998 ceremony alongside its inspiration I Finally Found Someone.
Critical reception
The National Post noted that at a 2012 Montreal concert, the singer "feigned surprise and 'struggled' to remember the song" despite it being listed in the program beforehand; they attributed this to her "incomparable professionalism". She performed the song with Il Divo in her 1996 U.S. and Canadian tour. Moviefone deemed the song a "generic power ballad", and described Adams as " similarly overwrought". Boca Raton News described it as a "big music hit". 'The Washington Post wrote the Adams "speak-sings his way through" the song while Streisand is unrestrained. The Buffalo News said Streisand is "fascinating" on the song. The Virginian Pilot deemed it "devoted". Star Tribune thought it was "stagily romantic" in which Adams is "full of purring sweet talk but doesn't really throw any sparks". The Mirror said the song is one of the few pieces that redeem the score to The Mirror has Two Faces."