The Three Tenors In Concert 1994

It takes a rare thing for an album by three(*) opera singers to make the top ten in album sales. It takes a cultural moment where an opera singer, or singers, is widely enough known to garner the kind of attention required to sell enough albums to make the top ten. It also takes a certain kind of album; a whole opera would not be able to sell as well as a "greatest hits" collection, which is what this album is. This week, The Three Tenors in Concert 1994 is in the seventh position on the charts. It looks like this album will rise to as high as fourth in sales, which in 1994 is a fair number of copies sold.

Curiously, the only streaming services that appear to have rights to this album are YouTube (and its eponymous music service), and SoundCloud. Notably Spotify and Tidal do not have it. Luckily I have access to YouTube Music so I listened to it there.

As mentioned above, this album is mix of "greatest hits" of opera and popular music. I am not a big opera afficionado, but even I can tell that these tenors are far more comfortable singing opera than popular songs. The opera songs are clearly very well sung. Unfortunately, the popular songs, like My Way, are halting and impacted by the fact that english is not these singers first language. I think that if they had stuck to singing only opera's greatest hits, it would have made the album better at the expense of its popularity. But as it is, the popular songs are not good. If you care to, listen to Sinatra's My Way, and then My Way off this album to hear what I mean.

Honestly, it appears that even the rights holders to this album are content to let this album fade into history. Streaming services are where the listeners are, and by keeping it off of most services, they are making it almost impossible to find. If I didn't have access to YouTube Music, I would not have put in the effort to listen to it. I think that you, dear reader, can safely leave this album in the past.

(*) There are four men on the album cover. I guess the fourth is the conductor of the orchestra. Still, it's incongruous to have "Three Tenors" and four people in the picture.