Classic Sinatra - His Great Performances, 1953-1960

iTunes Review

Whatever your pop tastes may be, there’s no excuse for not having at least one Frank Sinatra album in your collection. And if you're only going to have one, Classic Sinatra is an excellent choice. Gleaned from his Capitol Records heyday, the collection captures Ol’ Blue Eyes at the height of his powers. Of course, he had been a singing phenomenon for a decade before cutting these tracks, but this is the archetypal Sinatra that fans point to when they hail his genius — his readings of “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “All the Way,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” “Come Fly With Me” and nearly all the rest of the numbers here are unassailable classics. More than anything, what’s documented during this period is Sinatra’s evolution into a mature interpreter of loss and loneliness. He fills ballads like “One For My Baby (And One More For the Road)” and “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” with a melancholy gravitas that remains unequalled. It could be argued that such ‘60s albums as September of My Years are nearly as important in the Sinatra canon, but for the purest distillation of Frank’s magic, this is the one to have.