Till I Loved You is the twenty-fifth studio album by American singer Barbra Streisand, released on October 25, 1988, on Columbia Records.
The album was notable for both its thematic structure (chronicling the beginning, middle, and end of a romance) and its high-budget production, with many guest writers, producers, and musicians: Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager offered three brand new songs to the album, Quincy Jones produced "The Places You Find Love", with Luther Vandross and Dionne Warwick adding backing vocals.
The title track, a duet between Streisand and then-boyfriend Don Johnson, became a Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
Streisand's version features an all-star backup group - background vocals are credited to Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick, James Ingram, Howard Hewett, Jennifer Holliday, Peggi Blu, Clif Magness, Siedah Garrett and Edie Lehmann.
Jones utilized the same arrangement and background singers for his album, and also incorporated some African chanting during the bridge and climax of the song.
The album's title track is a duet with the Miami Vice actor Don Johnson, whom Streisand was dating at the time of recording.
Burt Bacharach produced and wrote three tracks on Till I Loved You with his wife and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager.
Phil Ramone produced the song "All I Ask of You", which was originally a duet in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical The Phantom of the Opera.
Paul Grein from the Los Angeles Times gave the album a favorable review and elected "All I Ask of You" as the best song of the record.
He also wrote that the album "marked improvement over “Emotion” in that Streisand is no longer trying to compete with singers half her age for the hearts and minds of the teen-agers who buy singles and watch MTV".
[5] People gave the album an unfavorable review in which the author wrote that the best part of the record is "the sheer pleasure of hearing Streisand's voice" and some tunes like "All I Ask of You" and "Some Good Things Never Last" but concluded that "there are moments when it almost doesn't matter what she's singing; you just wish it would never end.
Streisand's retrospective box set Just for the Record noted the album also received certification in New Zealand.