Customer Reviews

Greatest Love Songs

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You can hardly blame Warner/Reprise for packaging and repackaging the Sinatra catalogue any which way, and in this case I admit that the packaging is elegant. I'll hold my comments on Celine Dion til the end. That said, there is not much here that is not already available, and because Sinatra wrote the book on assembling romantic (or lovelorn, or swinging) concept albums, the whole point of re-releasing seems wholly commercial.

The songs are (almost) all superb. 'My Funny Valentine' is vocally challenging, but it sounds like it was written for Sinatra. The grand and slower 'Night and Day' is just as appealing, in a different way, as the hard swinging Capitol version from the celebrated 'A Swingin' Affair' album with Nelson Riddle. 'The Very Thought of You' is a wonderful choice, with lush orchestrations from the 'Songs from Great Britain' album that can be hard to find.' You and the Night and the Music' is a brassy Johnny Mandel-arranged swinger from 1961's 'Ring-a-Ding-Ding' -- one of my favorites from a favrite album, but a bit intense for a collection of 'love songs'. There are many other great songs here, but not all the news is good.

'Strangers in the Night' is not something Sinatra was proud of -- he apparently recorded it in a hurry to get something on the charts during the Beatle-dominated mid-1960s. It worked, it was a #1 hit, but it is kitsch and it sounds like it. 'Summer Wind' from the same album is infinitely better. Again, though, all of this material is readily available on several other collections. If you already own these, consider whether you need to invest in another album of the same.

Finally -- and I know I'll offend Celine Dion fans, and I know she has a remarkable voice -- there is no excuse for engineered duets, particularly when they tarnish one of the great standards of the Sinatra catalogue, in this case 'All the Way'. It is especially excruciating because the Reprise re-recording of 'All the Way' is one of few that genuinely gives the original a run for its money. If there is a perfect recording of a perfect song, this was it. This ersatz duet is analogous to having a very skilled painter do something a little bit different directly over the canvas of a Monet.

Do you need this for your collection? Sinatra is Sinatra, and if you are reading this review instead of shopping the latest teen wonder band you most likely take music seriously. There are dozens of classic Sinatra albums from the 1940s through the 1960s, and several ('Nice n Easy' and 'Sinatra and Strings' come immediately to mind) are better collections of love songs. While the present set is not bad -- except for the pseudo-duet, which takes 'bad' to new levels -- my recommendation would be to keep shopping.

"Greatest Love Songs" was released early in 2002 to be available for Valentine's Day, and while my preference is for the great thematic albums that Frank Sinatra put out in the 1950s and 1960s, this is a solid collection of 22 tracks (even when you dismiss the faux duet with Celin Dion on "All the Way"). While the album relies mainly on songs Sinatra recorded with Reprise in the 1960s, Warner was also able to pull several songs from the earlier days with Capitol. This collection includes a good share of hits, from "My Funny Valentine," "I've Got a Crush on You," and "Fly Me to the Moon" to "The Way You Look Tonight," "Night and Day," and his last #1 hit, "Strangers in the Night." The nice thing is that in picking these songs they paid attention to the songs and not just the titles. Granted, if you have an extensive collection of Sinatra albums in your music library then you probably have all of these tracks already, but instead of putting together a love song collection like this yourself you can just pick up this one. If you have discovered an affinity for Sinatra love songs, then that would be another good reason to pick up "Greatest Love Songs." You could also check out the collection "Songs for Swinging Lovers" as well as a suitable companion album to listen to what Sinatra and arranger Nelson Riddle could do when they wanted to put together an album of love songs all by themselves.

When Sinatra began his career with Reprise--which makes up the bulk of this collection--in 1960, he still continued to work with long-time arranger Nelson Riddle on such classics as "Moonlight Serenade" and "The Way You Look Tonight" from 1965 and 1964 respectively. Some of Sinatra's earliest sides for Reprise ("Let's Fall in Love," "You'd Be So Easy to Love") were arranged by former Count Basie trombonist Johnny Mandel, who lends a jazz influence to the proceedings. On the standard "Fly Me to the Moon" Sinatra works with Count Basie and his Orchestra along with arranger Quincy Jones. Listening to the twenty-two tracks collected hear, it makes a compelling case that Sinatra was the finest singer of the Twentieth Century. If you're looking for the perfect Valentine album, check out Sinatra's work with arranger Nelson Riddle on Songs for Swingin' Lovers or its follow-up Songs for Young Lovers--both from 1955, arguably Sinatra's classic period on Capitol. ["My Funny Valentine" and "Like Someone in Love" are both from Songs for Young Lovers.] With that said, Great Love Songs makes for wonderful romantic background music and will serve as a suitable introduction to the genius of Frank Sinatra. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Not Really...Not that any 22 Frank songs should not be 5 stars, but this selection could be somewhat improved. The swingers here like LETS FALL IN LOVE (overdone by everyone and a poor choice given much better ones that are not here),FLY ME TO THE MOON, IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT, and THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT are decent enough, but who would ever have a candlelight dinner with these loud blasters in the background?! Not even a young swinger in his first bachelor pad! Not to mention that the other selections are generally not tiptop Frank. Where is I HAVE DREAMED, STARDUST,a couple on MOONLIGHT SINATRA, and the FRANK/JOBIM album is not even represented, and that has a far better group of love songs by candlelight than the ones here! This CD is a good assortment, but you might wonder who's choosing them. In fact NICE N'EASY should fit that bachelor pad scenario!! And if you're looking for FS Reprise collections, stick with them, since these are really not the best Frank songs on Reprise! Then again,most of these songs are not anthologized, and it is 22 fine FS songs, and for the price, I guess it's just about as good as it gets! So make this a 5-star, instead of a very solid 4-star!! Sounds confusing,but the trick is to get FS Cd's that don't overlap much, and this one has another good thing in that most are not on various Reprise anthologies!!

With twenty-two greatest love songs of all-time interpreted by the greatest singing icon, the legendary, the one and only Mr. Frank Sinatra, you can never go wrong with this CD. It's a musical treasure of a lifetime.

To quote what was written on the liner notes, "Frank Sinatra believed that an artist is as good as his material, and he considered himself to be among the luckiest people in the world to have been able to make a career out of what he loved to do - to interpret wonderful music." Indeed, his material in this CD is so wonderful and very impressive, songs penned and composed by famous songwriters, the likes of Glenn Miller/Mitchell Parish's "Moonlight Serenade," Gershwin Brothers' I've Got A Crush On You," Cole Porter's "Night And Day," "What Is This Thing Called Love," "Easy To Love" and "In The Still Of The Night," Sammy Cahn/Jim Van Heusen's "All The Way," Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer's "Come Rain Or Come Shine," Ray Noble's "The Very Thought Of You," Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields' "The Way You Look Tonight," Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart's "My Funny Valentine," Ned Washington/George Bassman's "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," to mention some of the nicest songs in this CD.

According to Frank Sinatra, "it takes a long time to heal a broken heart, he understands that playing one of his albums can help." I totally agree with him. One can just imagine the many wonders that music can do to us. Well, this is just one of his many bestseller CDs that I'd love to listen to. I could listen to Sinatra's music forever and enjoy every moment of it.

The most remarkable tracks for me are the ones that were arranged by Nelson Riddle ("Moonlight Serenade," "I've Got A Crush On You," "The Way You Look Tonight,""You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me," "My Funny Valentine" and "Like Someone In Love"); Johnny Mandel ("Easy To Love," "You And The Night And The Music," "Let's Fall In Love," "In The Still Of The Night") ; Quincy Jones with Count Basie Orchestra ("Fly Me To The Moon") and Don Costa ("Night And Day" and "Come Rain Or Come Shine").

This CD is a collector's item. I highly recommended it and will be a wonderful addition to your Frank Sinatra collection.

Perhaps I'm not as discriminating as some, or as critical as others I've read here, but I think this CD is just wonderful! I've never "invested" in a Sinatra CD, but I've always loved his music. Now that I've taken the plunge, so to speak, I couldn't be happier. And as for those who think of the duet with Celine Dion as an insult, I think you've missed out on alot. It is a beautiful song arranged for duet or single and I love to hear it. I don't think I would change a thing about this collection. Some people seem to think that love songs should all be schmaltzy, slow tempo ooze. I'm very glad the truth is far from their conception and very well represented here in such numbers as "Let's Fall In Love" and "Fly Me To The Moon". Besides, if you're purpose in playing this CD during a date is to "get somewhere" haven't you ever heard of PROGRAMMING your CD tracks? How can a person claim to be such an officianado and fan of Sinatra and then bash the songs he sings? That doesn't make any sense.

When we think of love songs, Sinatra is usually who comes to mind. This is a good compilation but I think better could have been acheived. It seems as if there are more Reprise recordings than Capitol recordings, if they are even well so be it. But, there are classics that should have been immediate choices for this CD; "Young at Heart", "From Here to Eternity", "I've Got You Under My Skin", and "Angel Eyes", easily come to mind. No offense to Celine Dion... but do we have to have this "All the Way" duet on here? Not to mention she didn't even record this with Frank in person. Otherwise the recordings are great, "Let's Fall in Love" was one of my favorite Reprise tracks! Oh yeah and look at that front cover; that picture of Frank IMHO, is blurry! I have to stick with the reissues and label compilations (e.g. "Classic Sinatra", "Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years"), and Frank's love song album of "Songs for Swingin' Lovers!".

This compilation is done very well. I like the song selections in the manner that are chosen, Especially "In the Blue of Evening", "Don't Take Your Love Away from Me","The Very Thought of You", "Come Rain or Come Shine", these are absolute gems.

The booklet inside quotes Frank in a lot of his beliefs, The pictures are great as well, This is a great introduction into Frank Sinatra's love songs....

In my opinion, Sinatra has no bad songs ... just some that are better than others. This compilation has some totally excellent tunes on it -- although I find the title somewhat ironic, because many of these songs deal with unrequited longing and with the always-predictable romantic angst and ambivalence. But, I also find those are some of my favorites: "Let's Fall in Love," "You'd be So Easy to Love" come to mind. Toward the end of this CD there are songs that are slow/boring, but overall it's a great collection for lovers of Ol' Blue Eyes.

OK. I have only three other Sinatra albums. I am not one of the whiners you see me surrounded by here. I DID NOT have many, if any, of these songs before and this looked like a solid collection. It is. I can forgive the Celine Dion track-it is one of more than twenty so who cares. I could care less about these songs being remastered. They sound good to me and I have a very picky ear (just read some of my other reviews). Frank sounds great, and many of the songs that made him great are here. So what's the problem!?

Recommended.