Back in 1980, two giants of the music industry, Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb, came together to record an album, Guilty', that stayed on the UK album charts for over 80 consecutive weeks and which went on to sell in excess of 5 million copies in the US and 12 million copies worldwide.

At the time, Barry Gibb was fresh from his Saturday Night Fever song writing and performing success with his Bee Gees brothers and Ms Streisand was universally recognised as the world's premier female vocalist. In some ways it seemed an unlikely coupling with Gibb regarded then as something of a disco king and Streisand as the technically perfect vocalist more commonly associated with the big show tunes but it was a pairing that certainly worked and there was a great chemistry between the two. Gibb's gift for penning wonderful tunes and his unique falsetto blended wonderfully with Streisand's controlled powerhouse delivery and the end product was songs of the calibre of Woman In Love' and What Kind Of Love'.

Now, 25 years after Guilty' was first released, Streisand and Gibb have reunited to record another album together, entitled, perhaps unsurprisingly, Guilty Too' (Sony BMG). Comparisons with their first collaboration are inevitable and with expectations being so high there will no doubt be many who will be somewhat disappointed with the end result of Guilty Too' but although it does not quite scale the same heights of the 1980 classic album, it certainly has quality stamped all over it.

The magic that existed between Gibb and Streisand 25 years ago is still there 25 years on and it is a testament to their working chemistry that you really believe the two are an item'. Gibb has composed ten new songs for this reunion album but one song, Letting Go', was originally written for Guilty' but never recorded before and now it is one of the emotional centrepieces of Guilty Too'. Gibb is also the album's producer and he provides backing vocals on most tracks but sadly only duets with Streisand on two numbers, Above The Law' and Come Tomorrow', which are the highlights of the album, making the yearning for further duets all the greater.

Time has not diminished these two unmistakable voices and in many respects, Streisand is singing better now than at any point previously in her illustrious career. She has that unique capacity to transform a good song into a great one solely through her vocal delivery ability and she can still wrench more emotion from a song than any female singer. Stranger In A Strange Land' and Hideaway' are two such examples of songs that become much greater than the sum of their parts once they have been exposed to the Streisand larynx and end up with a classic feel to them.

Barry Gibb has not tried to break any new ground with Guilty Too' and appears to have simply tried to continue in the exact same vein as the original, which is clearly the right decision to have made. Whilst originals in any sphere, be it music, film or book, are rarely bettered by a sequel, Guilty Too' proves itself to be a very worthy project to have embarked on.