DrFaustus's Full Review: Classic Sinatra II [PA] by Frank Sinatra
The recent passing of Michael Jackson has got me thinking about musical superstars. A few years ago I would have thought that there would always be someone around making music that the whole world could unite around. Recent years, though, have seen the music world overrun by narrower and narrower niche genres. I'm hard pressed to think of a single song from the new millennium that's as beloved by absolutely demographic out there like Billie Jean, Rock with You, The Way You Make Me Feel, or Thriller. Anyone who says that they don't love hearing those songs is just flat out lying.
With such a considerable catalogue of universally beloved hits, though, there are have to be a few clunkers - not bad songs, mind you, but songs that fall back on cliches and end up bordering on caricatures of that signature style. Listen to songs like The Girl Is Mine or Man in the Mirror, to name a few. Enjoyable songs, yes, but they've got a level of eye-rolling schmaltz to them. They may have been huge successful hits, but that's more due the superstar aura behind Jackson. Taken from a purely musical perspective, those songs can be a little tough to chew and swallow.
Schmaltzy, second-tier songs mixed in with the super-hits aren't unique to Michael Jackson. They seem to be par for the course for any other singing superstar, including one of the original pop superstars, Frank Sinatra. And they seem to be the main focus of the recent Sinatra compilation Classic Sinatra II from Capitol Records.
As one of the oldest musical superstars, Sinatra's biggest hits are an indelible part of our cultural landscape. My Funny Valentine, I've Got the World on a String, Come Fly with Me, I've Got You Under My Skin, The Lady Is a Tramp - just like with Jackson's big hits, absolutely everyone loves those songs, even those not normally inclined toward lush, symphonic vocal jazz pop. And those hits all helped to make the 2000 collection Classic Sinatra, well... classic.
But nine years later with Capitol's Classic Sinatra II? With almost all the top-tier Sinatra hits claimed by that first compilation, we're left with the B team of Sinatra songs to fill this collection. Whether they're schmaltzy, saccharine songs that wallow in self-parodying cliches, Sinatra versions of songs that were better performed by other artists of the day, or just forgotten tunes that never fully caught on with listeners at large because they lacked the immediate hooks.
Consider his songs Love and Marriage and High Hopes. They're amongst Sinatra's best-known songs, but the overly sunny, almost novelty song sound of the Capital orchestra, the cloying vocal showboating that Sinatra does, and the saccharine sound of the children's choir on the latter of those songs, and they all add together to make for an experience that get's grating after more than a listen or two. As much of a master singer as Sinatra typically is, these are phoned-in performances that get by on the charming cliches of his style rather than on the genuinely heartfelt emotional delivery of his best songs.
Other songs, like All of Me, Pennies from Heaven, Love Is Here to Stay, or I've Got a Crush On You, are certain to be familiar for anyone with a passing familiarity of vocal standards from the fifties (and even if you aren't that familiar with songs from that era, you're likely to have an "oh, yeah!" moment of recognition as soon as you hear them). Sinatra sings them well, with nary a hint of over-the-top sentimentality nor of phoning in the performance, but these are songs that dozens of crooners recorded back in the fifties. Sinatra's versions are far from definitive. Fine performances abound on these songs, both from Sinatra and the lush, expressive Capital Records orchestra, but there are scores of other recordings of these songs recorded before and after that are just as good as these, and several manage to top Sinatra's own recordings.
Beyond those familiar songs, there are about a dozen tracks that just feel like filler. Granted, this is Frank Sinatra we're talking about so it's very high quality filler, but filler nonetheless. Too Marvelous for Words, I Though about You, Here's That Rainy Day, When the World Was Young, Just One of Those Things - again, these are quality performances, but they lack the memorable hooks of his most beloved songs. They've got the same "and the rest..." quality to them that found the Professor and Mary Anne swept under the rug at the end of the Gilligan's Island Theme song.
For all the second string material on Classic Sinatra II, two tracks do measure up to the pinnacle of Sinatra quality set forth on the original Classic Sinatra collection. Something's Gotta Give, with its swingin' hi-hat rhythm and blazing horn fills, and The Tender Trap, with its flowery saxophone flourishes and the rolling syncopation in Sinatra's vocals, are some of the definitive recordings the pop vocal movement that exploded more than half-a-century ago. They may not be the deepest songs emotionally, but they showcase Sinatra at his roguishly charming best.
Considered solely on its own, Classic Sinatra II probably merits a slightly higher rating, but being the follow-up to an absolutely fantastic compilation album that was more than enough for all but the most die-hard of completist of fans, the bar for this album was set impossibly high. Sinatra may still stand as one of music’s biggest superstars, but almost all of the songs here are must-have for the serious collectors only, and those people already have all of Sinatra's original albums (on several different audio formats, in all likelihood). Those completists might still pick this album up, since it does feature a previously unreleased Sinatra track, This Can't Be Love, but it's one of those "and the rest" tracks that isn't nearly enough to hook the more moderate fans by itself.
In a perfect world, Classic Sinatra and Classic Sinatra II would have been combined together into a wonderful two CD retrospective of Sinatra's years on the Capital Records label. It's not a perfect world, though, and with the "must have" Sinatra songs stacked so heavily in favor of the former of those two disks, Classic Sinatra II simply doesn't rise to the level of essential album.
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