By admin 
Introduction
We assume perfection from icons. We imagine Barry Manilow sitting at a grand piano, effortlessly birthing masterpieces in a single, flawless breath. But the truth buried in the Arista Records vault is far more human, and frankly, hilarious.
Barry Manilow didn’t just release “bad” demos; he released the sonic equivalent of a face-plant.
The “Holy Grail” of disastrous Manilow recordings is the “First Take” of “Mandy.” To understand the magnitude of this error, you have to know the history: “Mandy” wasn’t originally “Mandy.” It was a cover of a song called “Brandy” by Scott English. Manilow was forced to change the name to avoid confusion with the band Looking Glass (who had the hit “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”). So, the pressure was on. He sits down, the red “recording” light turns on, he pours his heart into the piano intro, builds up the emotion, and then, in the climactic moment, he belts out: “Oh, BRANDY!”
He literally sang the wrong woman’s name.
It captures the precise split-second where a future superstar sounds like a confused bar singer. But it gets worse. Before he was the King of the Ballads, Manilow was forced to record a version of his magnum opus, “Could It Be Magic,” that he absolutely loathed. It was 1971, and he was part of a “ghost group” called Featherbed. The producer, Tony Orlando, forced Manilow to record “Could It Be Magic” not as the sweeping Chopin-inspired epic we know, but as a fast, bubblegum-pop jingle. Manilow hated it so much he reportedly prayed it would fail. It did.
When Manilow finally released these “disasters” on his box set The Complete Collection and Then Some…, he wasn’t just clearing out the closet; he was shattering the illusion of his own perfection. He let us hear the “croaking” voice on the cassette tape for “One Voice,” recorded moments after waking up from a dream, and the “Featherbed” atrocity that nearly killed his artistic soul. These aren’t just bad takes; they are the debris of a career that almost didn’t happen.