Once in a While is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on May 23, 1988,[1] by Columbia Records and found him returning to the practice of covering contemporary hits but also mixing in lesser-known songs already recorded by other artists along with a few new ones ("Daydreamin'", "From a Whisper to a Scream", "Two Strong Hearts").

Although the album did not make it onto Billboard magazine's Top Pop Albums chart, the song "I'm on the Outside Looking In" did reach number 27 during its 12 weeks on the magazine's list of the 40 Hot Adult Contemporary songs of the week in the US that began in the issue dated July 2 of that year.

[4] The album received a positive retrospective review from Allmusic, where Bil Carpenter praised the "outstanding street corner-style singing" on the title track and "I'm on the Outside Looking In" and also had kind words for "From a Whisper to a Scream" and "Two Strong Hearts".

[2] From the liner notes for The Voice of Romance: The Columbia Original Album Collection:[1] Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra spent seven weeks at number one in Billboard magazine in 1937 with "Once in a While",[5] which is the oldest of the songs Mathis covers this time around.

[17] The duet on this album, "Two Strong Hearts" (with Dionne Warwick), was also released as a solo outing in 1988 by John Farnham on his Age of Reason album;[18] his version got as high as number 38 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary chart[19] and number five in Australia.