Crooooooooners

In direct contradiction with my post for the letter B, the one for C is dedicated to a genre of music which I wholeheartedly enjoy! Some of you may remember a post on my old blog in which I rained praise upon a CD called "Mob Hits." Well, I listened to Mob Hits again today (during a walk, while thinking intensely of a new story), and it is so great. Seriously, why is this stuff no longer popular.

So far, I have listened most prolifically to Dean Martin, by whom I own a double CD. (All credit goes to tech-savvy grandma and her advanced disc-burning skills.) However, I am looking forward to discovering more great old-time artists. If you know of any, please drop a line.

What is it about backslick-greasy, shaven-faced smooth oldies music that I find so fantastic?? I'm not completely sure, but it may be due partly to the large amount of Italian-Americans who sang these kinds of songs, making me in equal measures curious about and proud of my heritage, and partly to their extremely high sing-along factor. Few types of music allow the singing style "Uninhibited Belting" like catchy crooning postwar swing. Awwwww yeah.

(Oh, and those artists made great Christmas music.)

Its appeal is also most definitely related to my fascination with the dark cynicism of noir. The music is from the same era, and yet it's so glad, so wholesome by modern values. The resulting contrast is priceless. That walk I told you about? Too much of it was spent imagining violent mafia scenes to the tones of "Al-Di-La."

It's fun being morbid.