John Roderick Reviews Michael Bublé's Latest Album
John Roderick, The Talk House:
The appeal of Sinatra/Martin/Davis Jr. in Vegas in 1965 is obvious, but their slick suits, whiskey and cigarettes can’t be divorced from the fact that they were all in their forties, they’d been through a war, they were Italians and Jews and blacks in an unintegrated country, their audience was shitfaced and angry, and there were mobsters waiting by the stage door. To whatever degree big-band music and Rat Pack culture seem suave and cool, it was a product of a pressure-cooker of violence, racism, alcohol and PTSD. Bublé wants to be suave, and his fans want a little taste of being smooth, but they simply don't have as much pain to put behind them.
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