Greatest Love Songs

Frank Sinatra

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 15, 2002)
• Original Release Date: January 15, 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Wea/Warner Bros.
• ASIN: B00005UPFI
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #56,392 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
The Sinatra who could more than convincingly offer that he had a crush on you is represented by this sweetly packaged 22-track collection. Culled mostly from the early Reprise years (with a four-cut sample of Capitol performances), Greatest Love Songs makes an airtight case for his work during the period. Often tender, occasionally enthusiastic, these selections skirt the bombast and self-parody the Chairman sometimes fell into on his own label. Popular classics like "Fly Me to the Moon" and "The Way You Look Tonight" are more than matched by keepers like the dramatically slowed Sinatra & Strings version of "Night and Day," the swinging dare of "Let's Fall in Love," and the elegiac 1961 take of "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You." Save for the thud of a studio-engineered posthumous duet with Celine Dion--an insult both to Sinatra and one of the most delicate of his signature songs, "All the Way"--this is an exemplar of the Valentine-themed album. --Rickey Wright

Product Description
First ever single-disc long song collection spanning Sinatra's years with Reprise Records & Capitol Records. Features Sinatra's studio duet with Celine Dion - 'All They Way'. Just in time for Valentine's Day. Reprise Records.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sinatra = 5+ Stars, This Album Doesn't, January 31, 2002

By	Jon Warshawsky "Sinatra Guru" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Master of the Romantic Ballad, January 19, 2002

By	Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid collection of Frank Sinatra love songs, June 1, 2003

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

"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.