Capitol Scorecard

Over the years, there have been so many poor-sounding issues and reissues of the Sinatra/Capitol catalog that it’s quite hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. The ongoing review pages that have been prepared with the assistance of friends at the Steve Hoffman Music Forum and Sinatra Family Forum are meant as a way to find some sort of direction in the overgrown forest of sub-par editions of these landmark albums. In the process, the review pages themselves have become a little challenging to navigate, so below is a quick-reference scorecard.

*NOTE: Regarding original LPs, you will see that many are described as “typical,” which is not a put down. The original D-cut USA Capitol LPs routinely exhibit certain characteristics: tasteful-yet-audible compression, “soft” or gently rolled-off treble, and a pleasant warmth of tone, all of which add up to a good-sounding record overall. These LPs are typically as good a place to start as any, although I would rarely assign them the title “absolute best pick.” They are almost always “good” LPs.

Comparative audio clips for many albums and singles are available at www.11fifty.com.