Trilogy: Past Present Future | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | March 26, 1980 | |||
Recorded | July 17 – December 18, 1979 New York City, Los Angeles, Hollywood | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 106:11 | |||
Label | Reprise 3 FS 2330 | |||
Producer | Sonny Burke | |||
Frank Sinatra chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [1] |
Trilogy: Past Present Future (or simply Trilogy) is the fifty-fifth studio album by American singer Frank Sinatra, released in March 1980 through Reprise. The triple album included his last Top 40 hit: "Theme from New York, New York".
Each of the album's three records was conceived as an individual work portraying a different time epoch, and each was arranged by one of Sinatra's major collaborators: Billy May (The Past), Don Costa (The Present), and Gordon Jenkins (The Future). Nelson Riddle also contributed the arrangement of "Something" for The Present.
For "The Past," Sinatra recorded standards for the first time since the early 1960s: "The Song Is You," "It Had to Be You," "All of You". "The Present" concentrates on pop hits like "Love Me Tender", "Something", "Song Sung Blue", "MacArthur Park", and "Just the Way You Are". Stephen Thomas Erlewine's review described "The Future" as "a mess", although it was also called "ambitious, experimental, and self-referential — more of a freeform suite than a set of songs". [1]
Trilogy: Past Present Future peaked at No. 17 on the Billboard 200.
At the Grammy Awards of 1981, Trilogy: Past Present Future was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and Sinatra's recording of "Theme from New York, New York" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. It won the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes.
On his WNEW-AM show, Jonathan Schwartz described the "Future" suite that forms the final part of this album as "narcissistic" and "a shocking embarrassment". [2] Sinatra rang to complain, and had Schwartz suspended from his job. [2]
Writing for Billboard in 2015, Bruce Handy said, "35 years after its March 1980 release, in this, the year of Sinatra’s 100th birthday, it remains one of the most ambitious, strange, brilliant and bloated albums of his or any other artist’s body of work." [3]
Arranged by Billy May
Side One:
Side Two:
Arranged by Don Costa, except "Something" arranged by Nelson Riddle
Side Three:
Side Four:
All songs written, arranged and conducted by Gordon Jenkins
Side Five:
Side Six:
Chart (1980) | Peak position |
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Australia (Kent Music Report) [4] | 62 |
Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer, and pianist who was influential in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s. Jenkins worked with The Andrews Sisters, Johnny Cash, The Weavers, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Harry Nilsson, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald.
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