Duets

Frank Sinatra

  • AllMusic Rating
    4
  • User Ratings (0)
  • Your Rating

Duets Review

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

As a marketing concept, Frank Sinatra's comeback album Duets was a complete success. A collection of Sinatra standards produced by Phil Ramone, the record wasn't a duets album in the conventional sense -- Sinatra never recorded in the studio with his partners. Instead, the other singers recorded their tracks separately, sometimes in different studios, and the two tracks were pasted together to create the illusion of a duet. In the case of several duet partners, including Bono and Barbara Streisand, this means they rely on camp as a way of making their performances interesting. Sinatra, meanwhile, is oblivious to all of the vocal grandstanding, simply because he recorded his tracks well in advance of their contributions. The result is a mess. Not only do the vocalists never mesh, but the orchestrations are ham-fisted and overblown, relying more on bombast than showmanship. Furthermore, Sinatra's performance is uneven; occasionally his voice is remarkable, but just as often it is thin and worn. Nevertheless, Duets was a gigantic hit, selling over two million copies and becoming Sinatra's single most commercially successful record, though it's easily the worst he released during his lengthy career. Duets rose to number two on the pop charts because of its masterful marketing strategy. The album was promoted as a piece of nostalgia, primarily to baby boomers but also to Generation X as a piece of kitsch. Both approaches ignore the emotional core of Sinatra's music, which is evident on only one track -- "One for My Baby," which was essentially a solo performance introduced by an instrumental from saxophonist Kenny G. Perhaps if Duets remained true to the essence of Sinatra's music, it would have been more effective, but as it stands, the album is only admirable as a piece of product, not a piece of music.

Track Listing

Title/Composer Performer Time Stream
1
The Lady Is a Tramp
Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers
Frank Sinatra feat: Luther Vandross 03:24 SpotifyAmazon
2
What Now, My Love?
Gilbert Bécaud / Pierre Delanoë / Carl Sigman
Frank Sinatra feat: Aretha Franklin 03:15 SpotifyAmazon
3
I've Got a Crush on You
George Gershwin
Frank Sinatra feat: Barbra Streisand 03:23 SpotifyAmazon
4
Summer Wind
Hans Bradtke / Henry Mayer / Johnny Mercer
Frank Sinatra feat: Julio Iglesias 02:32 SpotifyAmazon
5
Come Rain or Come Shine
Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer
Frank Sinatra feat: Gloria Estefan 04:04 SpotifyAmazon
6
Theme from New York, New York
Fred Ebb / John Kander
Frank Sinatra feat: Tony Bennett 03:30 SpotifyAmazon
7
They Can't Take That Away from Me
George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin
Frank Sinatra feat: Natalie Cole 03:11 SpotifyAmazon
8
You Make Me Feel So Young
Mack Gordon / Josef Myrow
Frank Sinatra feat: Charles Aznavour 03:05 SpotifyAmazon
9
Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry/In the Wee Small Hours of the Morni
Sammy Cahn / Jule Styne
Frank Sinatra feat: Carly Simon 03:57 SpotifyAmazon
10
I've Got the World on a String
Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler
Frank Sinatra feat: Liza Minnelli 02:18 SpotifyAmazon
11
Witchcraft
Cy Coleman / Carolyn Leigh
Frank Sinatra feat: Anita Baker 03:22 SpotifyAmazon
12
I've Got You Under My Skin
Cole Porter
Frank Sinatra feat: Bono 03:32 SpotifyAmazon
13
All the Way/One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)
Harold Arlen / Sammy Cahn / James Van Heusen / Johnny Mercer
Frank Sinatra feat: Kenny G 06:03 SpotifyAmazon
blue highlight denotes track pick
Duets

Frank Sinatra Discography Browser