Sarah really can't catch a break here, omg  Loved this one!

 

#38. "Sway"

"Make me thrill as only you know how

Sway me smooth, sway me now…"

Average: 7.61969697

Highest score: 10 (@Album Leak, @Devin, @roso, @Vixen Eyes)

Lowest score: 2 (@Curaga, @Taylor fanboy)

 

On her 1963 album Latin in a Satin Mood, Julie, as the title suggests, puts her own spin on twelve Latin American standards. The centrepiece of the album was "Sway," a song that feels quintessentially Julie even if other versions are often seen as more definitive.

 

That being said, the song was quite different when it began its life as "¿Quién será?". Written by Luis Demetrio and Pablo Beltrán Ruiz for singer and actor Pedro Infante, its lyrics initially were from the perspective of a man who wonders if he will ever love again. American lyricist Norman Gimbel, however, decided he didn't like this. When he translated the song to English, he changed its whole story, transforming it into a sultry little number about a man praising his partner for the effect her dancing has on his heart.

 

It felt like an inevitability that a song that oozed sex the way "Sway" did would end up in Julie's hands, and when it did, it was everything you could want in a version from her: alluring, tantalising, and utterly bewitching.

 

What the GP had to say:

 

@Luigi

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these white women...

@Meloetta Carey

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drunk auntie at a wedding teas

 

@Curaga

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I think she's trying to sound sultry, but she sounds half-asleep 

 

@Achilles.

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This is a huge bop and she sells the hell out of it. Is the rest of her Latin (in a Satin Mood) album this good? Maybe all she needed all along was a little seasoning to perk her up. Wiki says that Michael Buble has a hit cover of this that's been featured on lots of things and as soon as I read that I could hear it in his voice so I'm sure I've encountered it before.

Edited August 12, 20251 yr by conatus

We're sticking with Julie for the next one too! She might be taking a few whacks tonight...

This beat some great Julie offerings

Julie has a lovely voice but that Sway song only swayed me to skip.

1 minute ago, conatus said:

What the GP had to say:

 

@Luigi

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these white women...

@Meloetta Carey

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drunk auntie at a wedding teas

 

@Curaga

Quote

I think she's trying to sound sultry, but she sounds half-asleep 

Just now, conatus said:

We're sticking with Julie for the next one too! She might be taking a few whacks tonight...

Yeah, she’s really only for the elite appreciators of jazz

45 minutes ago, Vixen Eyes said:

I'm at WORK

HIRED!

 

Julie can't relate tonight.

Edited August 12, 20251 yr by Taylor fanboy

Oooouu, I thought Sway had more stans than that. Poor her. 

 

#37. "Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)"

"You are all I longed for

All I worship and adore…"

Average: 7.681818182

Highest score: 10 ( @Achilles., @Album Leak, @Atlantis, @Devin, @mellenthin, @MP2K)

Lowest score: 1 (@Wicked)

 

I would just like to point out that for the first, maybe, month or so of voting, this was the runner-up. And the gap between this and third place was huge. So... There's that.

 

Written in 1954 and receiving its first commercial recording release that year, it's safe to say that "Fly Me to the Moon" is a famous song. It's easy to lose count of how many singers, particularly jazz ones, have taken the song on and added it to their output. A year before Frank Sinatra's famous 1964 recording became synonymous with space travel, however, Julie recorded it for her 1963 album The End of the World. A fluffy, light, bouncy take on the song, her version feels undeniably romantic–and, maybe I'm crazy, it's one of the few versions that really makes it feel like you're flying when you listen to it.

 

What the GP had to say:

 

@Vixen Eyes

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this is more like a traditional pop song than a jazz song

 

@Doogle

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It's no Neon Genesis Evangelion end credits but we moved anyway

@Meloetta Carey

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why this sound like the Always Sunny theme?

 

@Curaga

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noT my fav rendition of this classic...

@mellenthin

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The pizzicato string parts fill me with so much joy.

 

@Achilles.

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Sarah's live rendition where she sings "kiss me" and someone makes kissing sounds so she calls them "fresh." Julie's recording with those sassy strings. Peggy being the only one to record the spoken word intro that contextualizes the song's whole existence (the writer's publisher dragged him for being too verbose and grandiose so he decided to write something a bit simpler, and voila you have a smash that's been recorded by a hundred people before Sinatra even got his hands on it); her version was apparently also the most popular before Sinatra came along. Dinah's arrangement with those amazing backing vocals accentuating her powerful performance. Nancy just sings this so beautifully. Amazing song in anybody's hands.

Someone who's currently here is losing their 11 next by the way!

Are you ready to meet your boatmate @supaspaz?

 

Black Coffee surviving nnn

I liked that one though so whatever

oh

 

Speaking of upbeat and sugary...

 

 

2 minutes ago, Armani. said:

Black Coffee surviving nnn

TABS!

3 minutes ago, conatus said:

Are you ready to meet your boatmate @supaspaz?

They could never be me! Their 11 made the top forty.

I really enjoyed this one tho! 

i didn't want to say it but the cover in the Bayo 2 OST ruined this one for me 

4 minutes ago, conatus said:

I would just like to point out that for the first, maybe, month or so of voting, this was the runner-up. And the gap between this and third place was huge. So... There's that.

2 minutes ago, Graves said:

Girl, you're telling me...

I mean, Miss Moon will always be decent at worst, but second place? Of all these songs?

 

And I actually didn't mind Julie's version, but the instrumentation was probably the more interesting element to it.

Just now, Atlantis said:

oh

 

It's kind of not your day today, is it?

 

 

 

 

#36. "Mad About the Boy"

"On the silver screen

He melts my foolish heart in every scene…"

Average: 7.693939394

Highest score: 11 (@Atlantis), 10 (@Achilles., @HarajukuPrincess, @MP2K)

Lowest score: 3 (@Curaga)

 

"Mad About the Boy" certainly has an interesting history. Actor and playwright Noël Coward wrote the song in 1932 for inclusion in the revue show Words and Music. Thematically, it deals with having its female narrator having unrequited love for a movie star… Or at least the widely known version does. The version that was written but never performed, which was from the point of view of a male narrator, contained overt references to the scandalous topic of homosexual love, inspired by Coward's own affinity for actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., a close friend of Coward's. Or maybe it was about Tyrone Power. We'll never be 100% sure. But the version that never made it to listeners referenced its protagonist's effeminacy, compared him to actress Myrna Loy, and discussed his frequent but unsuccessful attempts at conversion therapy.

 

Anyway, Dinah recorded "Mad About the Boy" twice in her career: the first came in 1952, and the second, the more well-known version, came in 1961, with orchestral accompaniment by Quincy Jones. The 1952 version was released as a single, but the 1961 version floated around on compilations and miscellaneous releases until the 1990s.

 

In 1992, the 1961 version was used in a television advert for Levi's jeans. As a tie-in with the campaign, which was inspired by the 1968 Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer, this version was finally released as a single, giving Dinah her second and final chart entry in the UK.

 

What the GP had to say:

 

@Curaga

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Not a fan of the talk-singing in this opening verse

@John Slayne

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Not to be too Lana coded but I like these lil songs about being fatally in love with a man.

 

@Achilles.

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This (Bridget) Jonesian serve. This is kinda one of the first gay anthems, actually? A gay man wrote a song about his celebrity crush, containing the lyrics "he has a gay appeal that makes me feel there's maybe something sad about the boy" (Julie's rendition is a bit sedate, but at least she didn't cut these lines). Apparently he also wrote lyrics about the effiminancy of the boy and failed attempts at conversion therapy, but they were never performed. But I love the lyrics and Dinah's delivery of them.

Oop, not another 11 (kind of a choice tho...)

This one is... nice. Not a Dinah standout for me.