Music Arcades: Frank Sinatra: Greatest Hits

Yes, well, I'm no Sinatra aficianado — in fact I know next to nothing about him beyond the innuendo about his connections the mafia and Nancy Reagan. There was persuasive article about his Sings for only the Lonely album recently by Alex Neilson in The Wire — yet still it's only now, as I write this, that I'm bothering to check it out on We7.

No, you could say that buying this in 2000 was part of my attempt to build my own private We7 or Spotify. Such folly.

It Was a Very Good Year is probably the song that persuaded me to part with my fiver. I remember the first time I heard it, in Iain Bond's car, as he drove us to a pub on Jesus Green for Sunday lunch. Two things about that experience made it stick in my mind. A student with a car? Someone my age listening to Sinatra? And also the song, I guess, which is very memorable, and which I still enjoy. Much of the rest is just meh to me, if that's how they say it.

So, Jeff Buckley yesterday, Frank Sinatra today. I'm warming up for another sacred cow tomorrow. Probably bigger than both of them put together. (And as for Jesus…)