POLL: Better body of album work: 50s Sinatra or 60s Beatles?

In another thread, they're comparing Sinatra to Jimi Hendrix. Some people really need to get a life.

 

yes basically sorry, a lot of people cannot understand why people can not appreciate the Beatles. That doesn't mean they have to be their favourite act but if you cannot appreciate ANY of their music from which so much sprang then I'm afraid this makes you a bit suspect. I for example am not a fan of Mozart at least up until until his later years, but I do not deny his genius, if I did then my views would rightly be suspect also.

 

seriously ? lol

 

Hendrix to Sinatra....that's weird.

I don't get why people don't like The Beatles.

And I choose them over Sinatra, I like In The Wee Small Hours and Sings For Only The Lonely but I grew up with and loved The Beatles and still do.
The excitement contained in a song like say, Tell Me Why; you won't find this in any Sinatra song!

ha,
they gave the tonic needed at the time and the earliest albums are amongst the most exhilarating music ever made!

 

Good. Then I can continue to listen to the Beatles I DO like, and skip the tracks I don't.
IMO, what makes people suspect is worshiping a band so much that said band can do no wrong. That's just ridiculous.
I also think that knowing/searching out all the personal minutiae of ANY band and it's members somewhat silly, if not disconcerting.
But heck, I think wanting an autograph is silly.

 

On that we are incomplete agreement, no act was perfect, the Beatles get the closest imho but even they have their duffers !!

 

They are not way ahead of George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Jimmy Van Heusen, Sammy Cahn, and dozens of others whose music Sinatra glorified. Without Frank Sinatra's body of work, a large part of the "Great American Somgbook" would be lost in obscurity today.

And that's why comparisons based on songwriting are invalid.

 

That was 1977. How many times do I have to say that I agree that FS could have genuinely liked Elvis after he met him? And I concede that FS's attitude towards rock could have evolved as well.

But I don't think there's any doubt that when Rock and Elvis broke big in the mid-50s, Frank initially despised both.

And FWIW, while I am a huge rock and Elvis fan, I don't hold either feeling against Sinatra. Everyone is entitled to like or dislike people or musical trends. Frank's 50s body of album work is, IMO, the best body of album work ever.

 

Please don't feel you have to repeat yourself.

 

I think the word "despised" is being overworked. Sure, FS disliked rock, just as Paul McCartney was not a Sinatra fan when young. They came from different generations and sang different kinds of music. (Although Sir Paul's tastes have changed a bit in old age.)

Not relevant to the poll question.

 

The Beatles early work compares directly to those great songwriters, they then evolved beyond ( and maybe way ahead of them ) although you could argue that because of that evolution the songs are not always as good ( i think they are better but you could argue otherwise ). Richard Rodgers was appreciative of the Beatles and the fact that their songs were usually based on Melody over beat, but Frank was not a songwriter. Yes his versions became the standards for many but he was not alone, Nat King Cole notched up his share too. They both covered many of the same songs yet some standards are regarded as Franks and others Nat. It was Nat that first gave Nelson Riddle to Frank too.

 

LOL

 

Do you mean the thread discussing Hendrix's quoting of "Strangers in the Night"?

 

Really ? Lennon & McCartney were called the best songwriters since Schubert...yes that was of course a touch of hyperbole but many of their early songs are very comparable imho

 

Sir Paul always was more in tune [as it were] with Frank Sinatra's musical taste than any other member of the band. Remember that James McCartney [Paul's Father] was in a jazz band, played piano and trumpet and encouraged his son musically, teaching Paul how to play the piano. Some of that "Sweet Band" musical aesthetic entered into Paul's musical world quite early. In addition to composing "When I'm 64" on his father's piano very early on, Paul also covered "A Taste of Honey" and "Til There Was You" on the first two Beatles LPs, two tunes that easily fit into Sinatra's musical conception. In fact, it's safe to say that Paul always was attuned to the classic songwriters of the twenties and thirties, much as his father was. George Martin, back when the hyperbole over the band's songwriting talents were at their apogee, noted that comparing the band's efforts to classical composers was far off the mark, but that comparing Lennon/McCartney to the Gershwin brothers or Cole Porter would be closer to defining their songwriting talents.

 

Don't listen to much Schubert, do you?

 

Yes, I was exaggerating the "comparing" part.

 

Yeah, I actually found that thread interesting, since I had been wondering about that quote too. I think the Reprise connection makes the best sense as far as explaining it.

 

All great songwriters. McCartney in particular has a Puccini-esque gift for melody. But the Beatles' earliest work -- the I Want to Hold Your Hands and PS I Love Yous -- are not the best-case examples of their work I think. But I have no issue with putting those guys in the class of the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and his collaborators and the like. Schubert? I dunno.

 

A touch of hyperbole? Lol, that statment is ridiculous. What about Wagner, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Ellington, Smokey Robinson even, etc.

The Beatles were great at writing catchy pop singles, great melodies and a gift for vocal hamonies. But they operated in a fairly small field. I love the Beatles but I do know where to draw the line. I even think Ray Davies is a much better lyricist and came close in terms of melody.

 

You can't expect everyone to like the Beatles can you? I mean music is about different taste, they are not some universal approved band. Having said that I think everybody can find at least one Beatles song they like. But it's like Motown or sixties Ska music - I can't understand how anyone would not like Ska or Motown, it's just great music, but plenty don't.
The key is not to confuse our obvious subjective love of a band or style with some objective truth.

 

Robin: I was referring to Sir Paul's quote ["I was never a big fan of Frank Sinatra's (when young)..."], which I showed in an earlier post. Source: Sinatra Family Forum —> Paul McCartney "discovers" Frank Sinatra!

 

Re-reading that thread from a decade ago, I found the following of particular interest. The bolded sentence relates directly to the topic of this poll:

 

Schubert was noted for song-cycles—an extended narrative presented as a recital of songs. While one can cite any number of Rock and Roll song cycles, the 'Concept' albums of Frank Sinatra strung together similarly themed songs in such a way as to produce multi-composer song cycles. Frank Sinatra's Capitol "Concept" LPs are among the most successful "Pop" song cycles. Peter Townsend marketed 'Tommy' as a Rock Opera, but Tommy is really closer to a song cycle, while Quadrophenia is closer to a full blown Rock Opera. In any case, Schubert's song cycles, in addition to the hundreds of songs he wrote in a very short life span, are as close to an absolute musical summit than a rabbit gets to a diamond. The closest the Beatles get to a song-cycle is "Sgt Pepper" and it's worth noting what the wikipedia has to say:

A song cycle is similar to a song collection, and the two can be difficult to distinguish. Some type of coherence, however, is regarded as a necessary attribute of song cycles. It may derive from the text (a single poet; a story line; a central theme or topic such as love or nature; a unifying mood; poetic form or genre, as in a sonnet or ballad cycle) or from musical procedures (tonal schemes; recurring motifs, passages or entire songs; formal structures). These unifying features may appear singly or in combination.[1] Because of these many variations, the song cycle "resists definition".[4] The nature and quality of the coherence within a song cycle must therefore be examined "in individual cases".[4]

"Sgt Pepper" was about as far as the Beatles ever got to a coherent collection of songs, but the best of the album tends to part ways with the album's "concept."

Mind you you, Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise and Schwanengesang might not be the most cheerful music in the world. But Schubert could compose that too:

 

This is an important fact:

It can be argued with righteous indignation that --- during the 1965-1966 time period --- The Beatles had better, thicker hair than most of the composers you mentioned.