Best of Duets [20th Anniversay]

Tributee: Phil Ramone.
Liner Note Author: Charles Pignone.
Illustrator: Andy Engel.
Accompanying the 2013 Deluxe Edition reissue of Frank Sinatra's Duets is The Best of Duets, a 14-track compilation that rounds up highlights from that 1993 album and its 1994 sequel, adding his duet with Luciano Pavarotti on "My Way," a cut previously unreleased in the U.S. (but available on various international editions of the first Duets). As these two albums are cut from the same cloth -- they were assembled from the same long-distance sessions helmed by Phil Ramone -- they compile nicely, and this collection also benefits by emphasizing vocalists familiar with the Great American Songbook over pop/rock novelties. To be sure, such attention-grabbers as Bono and Chrissie Hynde are here (the latter providing one of the liveliest cuts), but this focuses on Barbra Streisand, Luther Vandross, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Sinatra, Jr, which does mean this music doesn't seem quite as desperate to please all demographics as it did on the original album. Nothing changes how the Duets project remains a not-entirely essential coda to Sinatra's career, but anybody wanting to sample this swan song would do as well listening to this compilation as they would listening to the actual albums. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine