The Best Of Bing Crosby: 20th Century Masters (Millennium Collection)
Bing Crosby is the gold standard against which every vocal stylist of the pre-rock & roll era (evenSinatra) can be judged. His assured, intimate style changed the way popular music was sung, and his casual mode of dress--the hat, the pipe, the sweater--made him the era's definition of cool. Just so, he was staggeringly successful as a recording artist, with over 300 hits and nearly half a billion records sold. Reducing that to the dozen songs heard here must have seemed a comically impossible task. Yet the selection is a good one, coming mostly from the World War II era and just beyond, when Crosby's popularity was at its zenith. The set shows off Crosby's versatility--one minute he's a jazz singer ("Swingin' on a Star," "Play a Simple Melody"--a duet with son Gary), the next an emotional crooner ("I'll Be Seeing You," "It's Been a Long Long Time") and the definitive interpreter of timeless classics ("White Christmas"). Brief though it may be, this is a surprisingly satisfying collection.--Daniel Durchholz