Skip to main content

My Way - The Best Of Frank Sinatra – Frank Sinatra



Year Released: 1997

Label: Reprise

Year Bought: 1999

It is a truth universally acknowledged that being a 14-year-old isn't easy. I decided to make it more difficult for myself by not only being one of only three kids in school to learn the trumpet, but by shunning most musical touchstones of the time in favour of older music. And it doesn't get more of a throwback than Sinatra.

This was 1999, so before Robbie Williams made his 'Swing When Your Winning' album and TV talent shows were stacked with kids doing Dean Martin impressions. I felt like an outlier. Indeed, I remember borrowing the money from a friend I was with in town the day I got this record, and when I gave her the money back she muttered to herself "I can't believe I lent someone money to buy a Frank Sinatra album."

Anyway, I loved this CD. Well, the first CD of the set.

The first disc is just stacked with classics. It kicks off with funeral favourite 'My Way', then goes on to 'Strangers In The Night' and then wedding party constant 'Theme From New York, New York'. 

You know all them, but as the disc goes on there's just banger after banger, all sung and played brilliantly.

There's a run of songs that are just phenomenal: 

My Kind Of Town

Fly Me To The Moon

I've Got You Under My Skin

The Best Is Yet To Come

It Was A Very Good Year

Come Fly With Me

Seriously, these are all fantastic. My favourite is 'I've Got You Under My Skin'. It builds up slowly, then you get this great brass solo and the whole band speeds up a bit and then Frank comes back in and the song builds and builds and then he truly unleashes that glorious voice as he battles against the trumpets and you don't even realise how loud it is until it all drops out. Stupendous. 

Other highlights on the record include a raucous live version of 'The Lady Is A Tramp' taken from a 1974 Madison Square Garden concert and a swinging 'What Now My Love'.

There's only two real missteps. Sinatra's version of 'Moon River' doesn't really land. The song needs lightness, but Old Blue Eyes delivers it with a punch. The final track on the CD, 'LA is my Lady', is god-awful. Don't ever mix Sinatra and synths

CD2, however, is pretty uninspiring. While it kicks off with a rousing version of 'Let's Face The Music And Dance', there's then a run of ballads which are very crooner-by-numbers. 

This side also shows Sinatra at his worst (besides that awful dalliance with synths). His interpretations of 'Yesterday' and 'Something' by The Beatles are forgettable, as are versions of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Mrs Robinson' and Stevie Wonder's 'You Are The Sunshine Of My Life'.

The best on CD2 is his interpretation of Sondheim's 'Send In The Clowns'. Sinatra nails it perfectly, bringing pathos and self-reflection to the song. Regrets? He's clearly had more than a few.

Other tracks worth checking out on CD2 are 'Bewitched' – where Sinatra lets rip that gorgeous baritone of his – 'In the Wee Small Hours Of The Morning', which is pure whiskey-in-a-glass at 2am, and 'Three Coins In The Fountain'.

This album - particularly CD1 - meant so much to me growing up. Musicality, romance, emotion. Listening back as I near 40, I not only get the same feelings from it as when I was a teenager, but new ones as well. How can 'It Was A Very Good Year' not provide a whole new resonance now I'm passed 35? 

Accept no imitations. 

8/10

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pointless Nostalgic – Jamie Cullum

Year Released: 2002 Label: Candid Year Bought: Can't Remember Jamie Cullum burst into the nation's consciousness with a performance on Parkinson in April 2003, a showing that was soon followed by the huge-selling album 'Twentysomething'. It was 2002's 'Pointless Nostalgic' that put Cullum on Parky's radar, and shows the jazz singer and pianist beginning to hone the act that would make him such a breakthrough. There's a host of standards here – 'In The Wee Small Hours of The Morning'. 'It Ain't Necessarily So', 'I Can't Get Started' – alongside a couple of originals and a cover of Radiohead's 'High And Dry'. I remember that song being a big deal at the time for some reason. I think it was seen as rare merging of jazz and alt-rock. Cullum's version is not bad, and actually keeps it quite light and subdued without slipping into a dirge. Cullum was just 23 when this was recorded, and perhaps it's his yo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

Year Released: 2004 Label: Domino Year Bought: 2004 January 2004. I'd just quit uni. Was back at the family home in Bishop's Stortford. The place I'd been so desperate to get away from, and I was back and already bored.  And then things got a bit less boring. I remember this so clearly. I was having a shower and the radio was on, and on came 'Take Me Out'. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. At first I thought it must be an old tune that had passed me by, but no, it was announced as a new song by a band called Franz Ferdinand. It sounded glorious. It sounded interesting. After the staleness of the post-Britpop years, and beigeness of Coldplay, Travis et al, there was actually a British band doing something interesting. I loved it, and when the album came out the next month, I gobbled it up with glee. Listening back now, and I still love it. The hushed opening of 'Jacqueline', the sleaze of 'The Dark of the Matinee', the homoeroticism of 'M...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ringleader Of The Tormentors – Morrissey

Year Released: 2006 Label: Sanctuary Year Bought: 2006 Released in 2006, 'Ringleader of the Tormentors' in many ways represents the apex of the Morrissey resurgence that began two years earlier with 'You Are The Quarry'.  Whereas that album peaked at number 2 in the album chart (although it did spawn 4 top ten singles), its successor gave Morrissey his first number 1 album since 1994's 'Vauxhall and I'. 'Ringleaders...' raised some eyebrows at the time as Morrissey sang explicitly about something he had previously made a virtue of not discussing. His sex life. "There are exploding kegs between my legs," he sings on 'Dear God Please Help Me' – a tune that swells and grows to a climax with strings written by Ennio Morricone. "Now I'm spreading your legs with mine in between," he later adds.  Perhaps this new found desire of the flesh was due to this album being recorded in Italy, and references to the country season the ...
Post a Comment
Read more