Music icon Barry Manilow has said his next album will be his last. The 82-year-old legend has been promising fans a new album for quite some time. Following a run of concerts in the Palladium in London last year the star even took out adverts on buses to announce a new release which was due out in the autumn, but has yet to see the light of day. However the New York native has now assured fans the wait is over but this will most likely be his last recording. Explaining the delay he said it had take him so long to complete the album he has had to re-record some parts of it.
“This’ll probably be my last album. I’ve been working on it for a long time, for so long that the style of music has changed,” he said. “I had to go back and redo (the songs) so they sounded a little more contemporary.”
“I had to take all the strings out, all the background vocals out ‘cause they don’t do that anymore. They don’t use strings and background vocals and all that. Even I heard that it sounded dated, so we had to go back and redo it,” he told Billboard.
Despite the wait he believes fans will like it describing it as a “pop album”. While he acknowledges it may not be to everyone’s taste he says it is a “solid album” and that he isn’t trying to compete with the current crop of chart toppers and Grammy winners.
The star hasn’t released an album since Night Songs II in 2020. Throughout his over six decade career he has issued 31 studio albums along with six live recordings and 17 compilation albums.
That is alongside 57 singles which include classics such as Mandy, Copacabana and I Write The Songs.
Alongside working on the album Barry has also been performing what he has billed as his “final concerts” in recent years and has been visiting numerous cities to say farewell to fans in between dates in his Las Vegas residency.
He returned to the UK in May 2024 for what he said are his last shows first taking to the stage of the Manchester Co-Op Arena before heading to London to end his UK concert career where it all began with a 14 night residency in the London Palladium in the West End.
He first took to the stage there in October 1978. Speaking about his decision to perform a final run there he said: “In 1978, The London Palladium is where I began my love affair with the British public.
“These shows will be my last full concerts in Britain and I wanted to end where I began – at the London Palladium.”