In Brief

** Barry Manilow, “Showstoppers,” Arista. Manilow’s sweetly unobtrusive voice is not exactly a showstopper on this album of Broadway tunes, but he sounds reasonably effective in a duet with Barbara Cook on “Look to the Rainbow,” and even better in a trio with Michael Crawford and Hinton Battle on “Fugue for Tinhorns.” The album falters when Manilow fails to bring much life to pedestrian material from “Is There Life After High School” and “The Will Rogers Follies.”

New albums are rated on a scale of one asterisk (poor) to four (excellent).