Fred Astaire, as you know, made a name for himself singing and dancing alongside Ginger Rogers in charming old musical pictures for Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer. What made these films special were not as much Fred or Ginger themselves, but the people behind the music–namely George and Ira Gershwin. This album collects the most memorable songs from those movies (most of them from Shall We Dance, which is my personal favorite), and removes Ginger’s parts out (sadly). I own it because of the track They Can’t Take That Away From Me, which is my favorite song from a musical ever.
Month: March 2013
Record #175: Frank Sinatra – The World We Knew (1967)
Frank Sinatra’s legend is owed to two halves of his persona. First, you have the voice, and the knowhow to use it in collaboration with the greatest arrangers of his time. Few will argue that Frank is not the best at what he does (and those who will do so because of overexposure). When his voice crescendoes over the swung rock bass line in The World We Knew, or climbs up to the next mode of the melody as the string sections searches for sure footing in Born Free, it does things that no contemporary or copycat ever could achieve. His voice is smooth as velvet, and his taste in collaborators is unmatched.
Record #174: Animal Collective – Sung Tongs (2004)
For a while, I held the assumption that everything Animal Collective did before Strawberry Jam was impenetrably avant garde, stomping along like some pagan ritual that had more to do with hollering through synth noises than making anything concerned with the traditional definition of music, let alone pop music. Then, it came to my attention that they had at one point made an acoustic album, and curiosity bade me to seek it out.
Record #173: Frank Sinatra – Strangers in the Night (1966)
Once upon a time, I was a counselor at a youth camp. Having grown up staying in the same dorms I was now working in, I knew that the counselors usually had some non-traditional methods of waking up the teenaged campers. Having brought a portable record player, I decided it’d be a good idea to use Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night as an alarm clock.
I was wrong. It was the BEST IDEA.