7. Frank Sinatra – Songs For Swingin’ Lovers [1956]

7. Frank Sinatra – Songs For Swingin’ Lovers [1956]

So after just 6 albums we find ourselves with our first album by an artist who has already been listed on this countdown earlier and it couldn't be more different to that album. It's called 'Songs For Swingin’ Lovers' and it certainly does swing rather a lot. This is also the first album in the book that I have already heard previously as I came in to doing this list.

If anything you could almost say too much.
I'm noticing a growing trend among these early albums in that record companies tend to find a theme and stick to it for the whole album resulting in albums that sound the same pretty much the whole way through. It's like they're not quite sure how to how to handle this new format just yet and that the concept of having light & shade, peaks & troughs over the course of 45 to 50 minutes of music is still something to be gotten to grips with.

As for this album, well.... this is exactly the kind of thing you want when you think of a Frank Sinatra album, full of swing and energy with that big band feel. I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan of his (I much prefer his daughter Nancy and her work with Lee Hazelwood) but I recognise at least 5 or 6 of the songs on this album that have gone down as classic. Stuff like 'Pennies From Heaven', 'I've Got You Under My Skin', 'Anything Goes', All classic Sinatra songs. Even a the lesser known songs like 'It Happened In Monterrey' still make this album well worth listening to.

But this album does have one fault and I touched upon it earlier, it's just crying out for a change of pace. A few of the ballads on 'In The Wee Small Hours' would have been perfect to make this a much more rounded and complete sounding record. But taking the album in front of me for what it's worth. I have to say it's pretty damn  good.

Rating 4.5 / 5