Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

24/02/63 : Sinatra And Swingin' Brass - Frank Sinatra

Our seventeenth visit with Frank (taking him into second place on his own) - his swing albums are generally fine, but there's just too many of them!

Actually, I'd say this is pretty decent - but it's quite annoying because Wikipedia tells me he'd recorded most of these back in the 50s on a different label, so I guess he was just being the Taylor Swift of his day. I obviously knew "I Get A Kick Out Of You" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me" but was pleased to be introduced to "At Long Last Love" and "I'm Beginning To See The Light" which I really liked. 

We're at #18 in the charts this week on his tenth week of an eleven week run, with it having peaked at #14 in three separate weeks - it does seem like the public's enthusiasm for "more of the same" was finally waning. The top five this week were Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley, Frank Ifield and The Shadows, with the highest new entry being TW3 at #16. It's worth noting that the chart suggests people were actually perfectly happy with "more of the same" because (out of twenty entries) it features two albums from Frank Sinatra, The Crickets, The Shadows, Bobby Vee and The George Mitchell Minstrels - and THREE albums from Elvis Presley!

Wikipedia tells us this is his 26th album and, other than pointing out he'd recorded most of the tracks already, the only thing it tells us is that this is the only time he worked with Neal Hafti, who did the arrangements. Critically, people either liked it or had just had enough Frank and commercially, it got to #18 in the US and #1 in Italy (who would imagine they'd like Frank?).  

discogs.com tells us this isn't one of his more expensive albums because you can spend £3-10 on it and it's yours. But I actually thought this was OK and all very listenable - I can't help but feel if the lad had been a bit more judicious in his track selection and not recorded some of them several times, then we'd have had a generally higher quality bar (which seems a bit mad because this is Frank we're talking about!)

03/03/63 - Well I wasn't expecting that!

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