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Song of the Day #2,938: ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ – Frank Sinatra

sinatraLast week I defended Bob Dylan’s foray into the music of Frank Sinatra, but today’s random iTunes selection serves as a nice reminder that nobody sings a Sinatra song like Sinatra.

‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ is a Cole Porter tune originally written for the Broadway music Anything Goes. That was in the mid 1930s. Sinatra recorded two studio versions of the song, one in 1953 and one in 1962 (the latter is the version below). Funny that this song was already an oldie when Frank sang it for the first time.

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Song of the Day #2,937: ‘Wow’ – Beck

beck_wowMy last new song of the week comes courtesy of Beck, who offers up his first release since the gorgeous, melancholy Morning Phase won a surprise Album of the Year Grammy.

‘Wow’ is a world away from the Beck of Morning Phase and Sea Change, a lot closer to Odelay and Midnite Vultures. The brilliance of Beck is that he seems equally comfortable in both modes. Not many artists can pull off both soulful balladeer and space-age DJ.

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Song of the Day #2,936: ‘Vice’ – Miranda Lambert

miranda_lambert_viceFew things get me quite as giddy as the prospect of new music from Miranda Lambert. And given the high-profile break-up of her marriage to fellow country superstar Blake Shelton, her next album promises to be a doozy.

Will she be in full hell-on-heels mode, seeking unholy revenge like the heroine of one of her early country-rock songs? Or will she be resigned and defeated, like in ‘Dead Flowers,’ where she achingly sang that “he ain’t feeling anything… my love, my hurt or the sting of this rain?”

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Song of the Day #2,935: ‘Love Can Go to Hell’ – Brandy Clark

brandy_clark_big_day_small_townCountry songwriter turned performer Brandy Clark received critical acclaim and modest commercial success with her 2013 debut 12 Stories, an album I called the 7th best of the current decade a couple of years back. It’s that good.

Three years later, Clark has released her sophomore effort, Big Day in a Small Town, and it’s another winner. It has some of the same tricks up its sleeve as 12 Stories — no-nonsense female protagonists, hard-luck stories, gently ribald humor. It could easily be titled 12 More Stories. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

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Song of the Day #2,934: ‘If I Lost You’ – Garbage

garbage_strange_little_birdsAlt-rock band Garbage was one of my favorite acts of the 90s, releasing three excellent albums between 1995 and 2001. Their blend of grunge and techno felt entirely new during the dawning of the new millennium.

The band waited four years to release their next album, 2005’s Bleed Like Me, and it felt like a step backward. The band must have sensed that, too, because they went on an indefinite hiatus that seemed a lot like a break-up.

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