Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours

So I learnt a few things today. One, Sinatra actually has one of the best singing voices around. It sounds really good. REALLY good. It’s practically a finely tuned instrument in itself. The second is that ‘pop’ music hasn’t really changed that much since inception. These are pleasant songs, but he was given some really boring material. On first listen I could pretty much tell when the word ‘love’ would come up by the end of the record. It’s just kind of unsurprising. For all the shit someone like Justin Beiber gets, the material he’s given is probably about the same standard as this stuff is, except he can get away with being naive because he’s not a fourty year old man like Frank was when this was recorded.

I guess I’m not really used to this sort of music. I’m assuming it’s probably pretty common but the band is pretty badly recorded, and while I like plenty of artists who perform specifically so as to use their voice as an instrument (Paul McCartney is one, as is Ella Fitzgerald but then again scat is basically vocal bebop) but the feel to the album is kind of monotonous and naivety isn’t charming when it’s because you’re going senile.