Frank Sinatra - No One Cares

1959 Capitol album reunites Sinatra and arranger Gordon Jenkins: Bluesy, slow songs underline themes of loneliness and despair

Sometimes it's okay to judge a book by its cover. Depicting a down-and-out Frank Sinatra entrenched in his own private world while glamorous couples dance and swirl around him, oblivious to his presence and condition, the artwork to the aptly titled No One Cares testifies on behalf of the music and moods within the record's grooves. One of the crooner's top-flight ballads efforts, the 1959 Capitol album again finds him pairing with sympathetic arranger Gordon Jenkins and inhabiting each note of every song.

Often viewed as the sister album to 1957's Where Are You?, this third pairing of Sinatra and Jenkins yields slower tempos, more deliberate textures, and lonelier emotions. A profound sense of tragedy burrows into both the luscious strings and Sinatra's timbre, laced with ache, wanderlust, and dismay. Jokingly referred to by Ol' Blue Eyes as one of his "suicide albums," it instead harnesses the wrenching agony, painful solitude, and desolate helplessness that accompany romantic loss and failure of fulfillment. They're universal sentiments, and sensations Sinatra convincingly conveys, envisioning himself as the protagonist in each of the songs. You don't want to be without this one.