Sinatra / Capitol Sound Quality and General Discussion - "No One Cares" (1959 LP)*

Sorry I was skimming through to fast. I see that you already said that!

 

Which is the best regular CD version Larry Walsh remix or UK original? Could you please provide links or catalog numbers, I seem to be having trouble locating these CDs at Amazon. Thanks!

 

Here's a respected opinion around these parts:

http://www.11fifty.com/Site_108/Capitol_Scorecard_2.html

 

Assuming that by "UK original" you mean the version in the 21-CD box set Sinatra: The Capitol Years, it's available only as part of that out-of-print box. The Larry Walsh CD is the one available separately in the UK today; see this p0st for link and barcode no.:

—> Frank Sinatra - Best Sounding CDs?

Both are very good, but the "best" version is probably the MFSL hybrid SACD, which uses the original stereo mix.

 

Thanks, both links were useful and I found a few other Sinatra albums to complete my collection!

 

I received the Walsh No One Cares from Amazon and I'm really enjoying it.

 

I wonder if one was a mistake, and they mastered it again with the mix that wasn't the mistake, though both got into circulation. Or there was a deliberate change in mix, but the copy wasn't changed with it.

 

I just found out today that Point of No Return received the same treatment. There was a Dutch DMM mono version from 1984 as well; deadwax info as follows--side one: 2601771-A2+D, side two: 2601771-B2+C.

 

I haven't got one, but this copy on Discogs is the one: Frank Sinatra - Point Of No Return: buy LP, Album at Discogs »

Seller indicated it's got "mono" on the labels and stereo on the sleeve, like what we've come to "expect" from these releases.

 

This is truly bizarre. I've asked the seller if he could play test it for mono or stereo. But it's probably stereo...? I guess we'll see (or not).

 

Just snagged the recent MFSL for a cool 15 bucks on eBay! I really do like my original mono compared to the stereo, but I'm sure this MFSL will be a treat!

I have to say this is such underrated album. NOC was the first "real" Sinatra I ever listened to. "Real" in the sense that I got passed the greatest hits comps and actually bought a real album. Honestly I bought it for the cover (having no prior knowledge of the album), and wow what a cover it is. Got home with my fairly scratched up copy of NOC, cleaned it up and took it for a spin. For the most part, I only buy albums in real nice condition because I really find it distracting when there's noise and pops, but again, I saw the cover and had to have it. After the opening song that was it, I was hooked. Even through all the pops and clicks I absolutely fell in love with this album. Now having listened to the whole discography (or at least the vast majority of it), I still come back to this album time and time again.

It paints a darker, but more importantly, more detailed picture than any of his other works IMO. Now I'm not the best at putting things into words, but it's as if the whole album is layered with "things in the night" sounds. The thumping of the bass in Where Do You Go? or in some of the other songs the strings so sharp they pierce right through you. Jenkins really put his signature sound even on some songs I wouldn't have thought of as being "stringy" works. You also notice Sinatra's voice changing. Maybe it's just me or maybe it's the nature of the songs he sang, but I find his voice hits a deeper register than he had before, yet still keeping the ease he's always had through the rest of the notes.

His very next album, Nice n Easy you can begin to notice the decline of his voice. NnE is still a fantastic album and I don't mean it in a sense of "beginning of the end" for Sinatra, but his work from SFYL to NOC is pretty much top notch no matter which way you look at it. With Nice n Easy it's not that his voice started to sound bad, but you could hear when he would try and hit certain notes that it just wasn't the same. Where before it came with ease, now started to sound strained in some places.

Regardless, in my eyes this is an absolute first rate album that doesn't get the credit it should. Another fantastic, albeit different but still underrated album is Close To You. The only knock I have against that one is that the cover really sucks. No other way to put it. It really doesn't do the album justice.

Now I know there are only so many hours in the day, but @MLutthans I would love to learn more about this album through one of your in depth pages. Anyone for that matter, if you know something, please! It's one of my favourite albums yet I know next to nothing about it.

 

Great minds think alike? I still like Nice n Easy, along with a bunch of the rest of the 60s output but you definitely put it best with the "chink in the armor" line. I think it's a testament to how high his 50s peak was when you can call fantastic albums like Sinatra Basie or Sinatra Jobim "second rate" albums.

 

Some terrific vocal performances by FS on NOC (Rainy Day, Cottage, Ghost, etc.). But I find Jenkins's arrangements terribly overbearing (especially Stormy Weather).

 

One day while checking out at Wuxtry Records in Decatur, GA, I spent 20 minutes talking with the store owner. He's the only Sinatra aficionado I've had the pleasure of talking with in person around here. I actually brought up your post, Matt, and he seemed shocked at such an analysis. After 2 or 3 minutes, I had him convinced. It's a compelling argument.

 

Great album. Just listened to it after not hearing it for years and re-discovered it again. Nice experience after being a Sinatra fan for 34 years now. It never occured to me before, but the whole album sounds like a classic Jackie Gleason Capitol album. The same mood, sound, tempo, atmosphere. It's a nice glimpse how a Sinatra/Gleason album collaboration could have sounded like. Even the choice of songs matches the Gleason albums. Coincidence or purpose???

 

Is it the new (2011) remaster you listened to? If you love this album and you don't have it, get the MFSL remaster before you can't! They are pressing no more from what I understand. Or, get the companion MFSL CD/SACD hybrid if you prefer digital. Highly rated in sound quality by all.

 

I respect your work and have been following your Sinatra Album Comparison Pages for years now, but I do have to disagree with you in terms of using the phrase, "Decline." A "decline," can mean certain things. I agree that some of the albums really became slip-shod throughout the early 1960's. But I think you have to give him more credit for Sinatra & Strings and The Concert Sinatra, two of his finest efforts ever. Then you've got the magnificent first collaboration with Basie and September of My Years. Two album's worth of material from Jobim, a criminally underrated collab with Ellington (save for that awful climax at the end of Come Back With Me), and of course, Watertown.

He was not as consistent after that. I'd say if any album truly marked Sinatra's decline, it'd be something like Softly, As I Leave Yo.

Even stuff like Sinatra & Swingin' Brass was listenable from start to end. None of the albums he made between 1953 to, say, 1964-1965 have material that is cringe-worthy. But then you start seeing dreck like, "Pass Me By," and poorly conceived records like Softly, As I Leave You, That's Life, etc. That's where it really becomes problematic: when concepts for his records started slipping away.

Of course, there are a few songs on That's Life or SAILY that are worth visiting but you can tell that Sinatra is unfocussed, worried about commercial gain.