Frank Sinatra
Duets (Capitol)
by Marc Hirsh
Frank Sinatra
Duets (Capitol)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in the Rice Thresher, January 21, 1994
Ol' Blue Eyes is old. Frank Sinatra may be one of the greatest singers in American popular music, but he's getting on in years and it's beginning to show. His latest album, Duets, is an attempt to postpone the inevitable aging process by appealing to a younger audience and showing that Frank is still cool. Unfortunately, the evidence here points to the contrary.
It's not the song selection. Every song on this album is a classic, and Sinatra himself is partly responsible for that, but that's also one of the reasons the album doesn't work. He has already recorded the definitive versions of most of the 13 songs here, so there's not much chance of improving on them. Unlike Tony Bennett, who has actually managed to get better throughout the 40-some-odd years of his career, it's clear that Sinatra's glory days are behind him. His singing is bland, and the man sounds tired and bored throughout most of Duets. Maybe he could have walked through an album 30 or 40 years ago, but not anymore.
With Sinatra not up to the task, it's up to his "guests" to take up the slack, which, when you come right down to it, is really the album's only selling point. Some of the singers do a fine job. Although Sinatra sings "They Can't Take That Away From Me," Natalie Cole does precisely that, showing off her impressive voice in that same song. Similarly, Tony Bennett takes "New York, New York" for his own by sounding like he's having a great time, an enthusiasm that is sadly missing from Sinatra, who vainly attempts to express excitement in volume.
Luther Vandross, who is somewhat prophetically the first voice on the album, does more with his one song than Sinatra can do with the entire album. It's a pleasant surprise to find out that the man has a truly phenomenal voice, one with the same type of agility that set Sinatra apart all those years ago. Unfortunately, it only serves to underline the latter's current shortcomings, as Vandross completely takes the song for his own. It's the highlight of the album, which means that right from the start, it's all downhill.
Even the others who have voices that can match the legend of Sinatra don't do much to raise the album out of its gimmicky muddle. Anita Baker's take on "Witchcraft" is competent, but nothing more, as is "I've Got You Under My Skin," in which Liza Minelli does that Liza Minelli thing that she does so well. Both have good voices, but any headway they would have made on their own is cancelled out by Sinatra's lackluster performances. And Barbra Streisand's overdramatic "I've Got A Crush On You" shows the danger of people with good voices being given too much free reign.
With many of the competent singers floundering, the others do no better than to be nondescript. Aretha Franklin and Carly Simon just don't have strong enough voices for this type of material, and Gloria Estefan whines her way through "Come Rain Or Come Shine." Julio Iglesias and Charles Aznavour both sound like they were recorded in a giant barrel about 50 feet away from the microphone, as their voices boom and echo while sounding oddly distanced.
The album's low point, and the most blatant attempt to pander to the youth market, is the duet with Bono on "I've Got You Under My Skin." Sinatra has never hid his strong dislike for rock music, but somebody on the staff of Capitol Records obviously thought that this would be a great idea. What they didn't count on was Bono's low-throated delivery of most of the tune leaping straight into the high falsetto that seems to have become his favorite lately. The result is that he manages an off-key monotone before slipping into a too-high voice that is totally inappropriate for the song.
The album's faults might not have been so prevalent if Sinatra had actually worked with his partners personally. Instead of recording with the singers, he finished his parts and then sent the tapes to many of his costars to record their contributions separately, which the liner notes pass off as "the vivid, state-of-the-art recording technology of today." The result is an utter lack of interplay between the singers, leaving the songs limp and characterless. It's too bad, because if Frank Sinatra's first new recording in over a decade had relied on more than gimmick, then the Chairman Of The Board might well have made the effort to make a comeback worthy of his classic songs.