Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours (1955)

(originally posted on my facebook page)

Just finished my first new album, In the Wee Small Hours of the Night by Frank Sinatra. I was hoping to be moved, thinking that maybe hearing songs by Frank in an album setting would be different than hearing the odd song here or there. But this album failed to change my opinion. To my ear, Sinatra's songs are very derivative of each other... as in you hear one you pretty much know what to get from the others. Sinatra has a lovely voice which thankfully was not washed out by the somewhat lacking recording capabilities of the 1950's. But every song is melancholy in a major key, the arrangements are predictable, and the songs pretty much start and stop the same way. Maybe his next album, Songs for Swinging Lovers will be different. In my five star rating system, In The Wee Hours of the Night gets 2 stars- excellent voice, but boring songs.
Comments from Facebook:

Mo K - don't throw it away. I like Sinatra, predictability and all. Maybe it's the predictability and sameness that makes him so popular.

Mo K - Think about it, can't you identify a Zeppelin, aerosmith, etc song because there's something that never changes about their sound?

Me - Yes, and good artists can do one thing well for a prolonged period. The greatest artists go beyond the derivative. Led Zeppelin was a hard rock band, but all of their albums have a diversity of sound and style. Take their first album... If you listen to only "Communication Breakdown" you might think Zep 1 was all about chunky punk rock, when in fact three of the songs are acoustic folk music. Zep was rooted in blues-rock, but didn't stay there. In The Wee Small Hours starts in one place and stays there for it's entire runtime. In my opinion the point of an album as opposed to one song is to express more than a singular vision. I expected a lot more from album I must hear before I die.

Me - I should also note the name of the album is In the Wee Small Hours, not "In the Wee Small Hours of the Night". I wrote my review really late last night and wasn't paying attention to such details. Apologies.