Frank Sinatra new (EU/unlicensed) 16 album CD boxed set The Capitol Years 1953-62*

I've discovered a new Frank Sinatra boxed set being sold by Proper Music's online store entitled The Capitol Years 1953-62. The art looks very similar to another Sinatra single disc compilation. This boxed set appears to have 16 Capitol albums, but very little information is available. I'm curious to know what the sound quality is like on this boxed set and how it compares to the previous Sinatra Capitol boxed sets. The Proper Music website lists the label as Big 12, which I'm not familiar with.



http://www.propermusic.com/product-...The-Capitol-Years-1953-62-12CD-Box-Set-175370

 

I saw a 'Masterworks' set in the local library covering the same years. Knew it was grey area.

 

It's been available for some time now (—> Amazon UK link). Public domain Euro stuff: NOT official. I can't comment on the sound quality, but for that budget price, I'm skeptical about the source material.

The label "Big 12" probably refers to the number of CDs in the set. It appears to contain all 16 Capitol "concept" albums, plus bonus singles and compilation tracks to pad out each disc. Other similar sets have popped up recently, as every bootlegger seems to be trying to jump on the Sinatra bandwagon this year.
__________________
~ Frank's Albums

 

Thanks, Bob. I will pass on this set, as it likely has not been mismastered from the original tapes as I would expect from Capitol.

 

I didn't say the official stuff was necessarily great, but I appreciate the sarcasm, Keith.

 

Bought this set last Friday. Haven't heard all of the albums yet. Before commenting on the sound quality I must say that I don't have a lot of stuff from this period in Sinatra's career. Only owned the 3-cd box set The Capitol Years from 1990. Was rather skeptical as I prefer buying the official albums and not re-issues from an unknown 'budget' label. However, as it was quite cheap, I just couldn't resist and I simply wanted to hear more music from the Capitol years. If I'm not mistaken, this box set contains 264 songs!

After opening the box I was slightly disappointed by the card sleeves, they all feature the same picture of Frank, so no reproduction of the album sleeves. The 24-page booklet is okay. For a 'casual' fan like me quite interesting, but I guess it's the same old info for the hardcore fan. The cd's are filled with songs, apart from the Christmas album they are 70+ minutes full of music. Anyway, to this day I have heard several albums and I must say that I am very happy with the sound quality. The songs are louder compared to The Capitol Years 3-cd box set from 1990 I mentioned earlier, yet that doesn't necesarily mean it sounds better. According to the box set the songs are digitally remastered. Don't know if that's really true, but it does sound very good. Conclusion: Didn't regret buying it, it's got an awful lot of music I have never heard before in a very good sound quality. In fact, I doubt whether I will ever play the official The Capitol Years again.

 

For $20, sheesh, it's hard not to like this no matter how 'grey' it is, LOL. I just ordered from Amazon UK.

 

Thanks so much for the info. I really appreciate the heads-up regarding the artwork and lack of the original album sleeves. Sonically speaking, I'm curious to compare how the sound on this one to the British boxed set Complete Capitol Recordings.

 

These are the same 264 songs contained in Sinatra's 21 original Capitol LPs (16 concept albums and 5 compilations) plus one important extra ("The Lady Is a Tramp"). Some of the discs contain two full concept albums, and the compilation tracks have been tacked onto the ends of the one-album CDs in (near) chronological order. Quite an out-of-copyright ripoff.

It's actually not a bad organization for cramming a large part of Sinatra's Capitol output in the fewest number of CDs, but... Missing are at least 49 songs from the movie soundtrack albums (except "Tramp"), B-side singles, and miscellaneous rarities.

It will be interesting to examine the tracks for mastering quality, consistency, and sources.
__________________
~ Frank's Albums

 

I was tempted to suggest these might be ripped from the 21-CD British box set, Sinatra: The Capitol Years, but the presence of "The Lady Is a Tramp" and the Christmas album, along with the absence of many rarities (e.g. "The One I Love" on No One Cares), suggests otherwise.

Note: Neither set is the "Complete Capitol Recordings" by a long shot.

 

That is the crux of the problem. There is still no COMPLETE CAPITOL RECORDINGS set.

 

Let me say that I wouldn't have bought this box set (for such a price) if I had known which pressings of the original Capitol albums on cd I had to buy to obtain the best quality, soundwise. In the past I've done very little research, yet I believe a large number of the Capitol albums on cd are at least 20+ years old. So I decided to wait for newly digital remastered versions of those albums. However, I've waited some years and it didn't seem to come (or I may have overlooked those), so when I found this budget box set in a record store in Luxembourg last week I thought that I couldn't go wrong. Like I've stated in my previous post, I don't regret buying it.

By the way, the liner notes of the illustrated booklet are written by a guy called Peter Hill. Is he a well-known figure in the world of Sinatra?

 

Good research here —> Capitol Scorecard
Some of the better digital masterings by Capitol to date are from 1986-91. Newer is not always better.

No.

 

'Twould be great if FSE jumped on the Sinatra bandwagon this year...

 

Here's another budget set .......

http://www.amazon.co.uk/1954-1961-Albums-15-complete-albums/dp/B00J0YABJ2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1438127244&sr=1-1&keywords=masterworks frank sinatra

The artwork shown in the Amazon link seems to suggest a connection with the jewel case CDs issued by Black Coffee Records around 2011/2012 .
The Black Coffee CDs were grey market but sound quality is pretty great actually, nice booklets, bonus tracks also.

I sent "Forum gort/Sinatraphile" Matt a short sample from a Black Coffee disc once and he had a sneaky suspicion the Black Coffees may have used the giant EMI UK Sinatra box as a source.

Nothing confirmed, but food for thought .........

 

It's been discussed before —> Frank Sinatra - Best Sounding CDs? (post #170)

 

Sorry, just thought I'd link it as it was mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

No reason to be sorry. I was just pointing out some earlier postings about the set.

 

I bought this set from Amazon UK too - more out of curiosity than anything else - must have cost me only £12 - haven't had an opportunity to really listen to it, but I know it contains 15 complete albums - not all of the Capitols though - 12 Capitol albums and 3 Reprise albums, plus 43 bonus tracks - spread across 9 CDs - for someone who wants a lot of Sinatra for very little money, I guess it's a steal - literally, if it's not an 'official' release - so I feel a little guilty getting it, but then considering how much I've invested in official Sinatra product over the years I guess it balances out a bit...

 

No worries, thanks for the link ...... hard to keep track of all this stuff at times !

 

Yeah, the Black Coffee series missed Where Are You? and No One Cares ...... one more 2fer for those two would have been nice.
The legit copies are still cheap and available though which is good.

 

It's late here so can't do a shootout at any sort of volume, the only albums on CD I have to make a direct comparison are 'Wee Small Hours' and 'Nice & Easy' - I have 1991 CD releases of those. The ones in the box set say '24 bit remastered' although you could take that with a pinch of salt - did a quick comparison of a couple of tracks on each - the 1991 CDs are mastered a bit quieter than the new ones, but the new ones aren't brickwalled by any means - on 'Nice & Easy' the newer mastering in the box set sounds slightly more 'wet' with reverb, but that could just be down to more compression - still sounds very good though.

I have some original UK LPs and the 1984/5 Alan Dell LP box set - but might not be able to make a fair comparison as I might not be comparing the same 'mixes' of tracks, depending on what was used...

 

Thanks for the link Bob F! You're right about newer is not always better, I've noticed that too with other artists.