[A] Conceptually, this is important. I never said Sinatra was my favorite singer of the 20th century. In the obit I published in Details, I said he was the greatest singer. Which brings us immediately to the heart of all how-dare-you-rate-music questions. Yes, there is such a thing as assayable musical skill, and sometimes--usually but not always: bye-bye Steve Vai--this skill is enjoyable. Sinatra is definitely one of those cases. Concentrate on his his shading, his time, the way he strays a few microtones off pitch, and even if you couldn't describe those effects technically--which I can't, not with true specificity--you'll certainly be impressed, and if you're me, moved, engaged, occasionally enthralled. But that doesn't mean you have to like the man who achieved these effects, and in good criticism you make such distinctions, explicitly or implicitly, all the time. My wife, for instance, find herself generally unmoved by Sinatra's enactments of male vulnerability-as-mastery. Which is why I don't play a lot of Sinatra even though I have a dozen or two of his CDs in my shelves. My two favorites are the old-man anthology Everything Happens to Me, which I've written about (and which Carola does kind of like), and the classic Capitol ballad album In the Wee Small Hours. Of the uptempo Capitols, I like Songs for Swingin' Lovers. I always prefer him with Nelson Riddle, one of the few classic-pop arrangers I actively admire. Beyond those three albums, I've never had the opportunity to calibrate and probably never will, although I do explore albums I barely recall once or twice a year.

[A] As with all queries as to my non-review-oriented listening, I ask everyone here to do the math. To find my Expert Witness quota, I devote say 90 percent of my pretty much continuous ear time to records I've yet to write about and may want to. So basically I haven't listened to the radio since it became possible to play cassettes in cars. Without question this skews my listening in many ways, including away from singles. It's not ideal critically either, as I well know, and I should say right now that I wouldn't live this way if I didn't get paid for it, although my ability to enjoy it as much as I do--and I do, often tremendously--is one of my critical gifts. But even if I had the time to play mostly whatever I felt like I doubt I'd return to the radio. Instead I'd play my A albums as much as it seems most of you do.

[A] I don't recall the details with Because the Internet because it was four years ago, but in general it sounded like a falloff to me, plus it was a double, so though it may well have been some kind of Honorable Mention--the guy's a talent, no doubt about it--I never put in the time it would have taken to find out. "Awaken, My Love!" was different--in my opinion a seriously overrated piece of romantic P-Funk retro that owes its Grammy nomination to Atlanta. Atlanta itself, on the other hand, is a motherfucker. Got around to it late because with TV I generally do, but watching the first season on Hulu was one of 2018's highs by me. Unfortunately I've only seen the first show of the second season. Twice, actually--held up, too. But then, near as our imperfect smart-TV smarts can determine, it disappeared, though it's been a month or so since I tried to locate it. Anybody who has any ideas as to how we see it, we would love to know, even though my sister Georgia, whose tastes often parallel mine although she didn't dig Blindspotting, says it got too arty.

[A] I wasn't saying I liked the music--more that I admired it and enjoyed some of its formal elements. In fact, I think Frank Ocean's "Hotel California" rip "American Wedding," which with his usual generosity of spirit Don Henley quashed, is the best thing Ocean ever recorded. And I did give their Greatest Hits megaseller a B, which is far from a claim that there's nothing worth hearing on it. But I don't think they were "chronicling" me-decadism. I think they were embracing it full on and never stopped, although I'm sure someone can remind me of something they did late as individuals if not a band that's actively worth hearing.

[A] The late-'60 Wayne Shorter edition of Miles's band is my least favorite Miles--not that I think it's bad, but I've always found Shorter too cool. Nefertiti is the one I play from that period, mostly because Carola loves jazz trumpet and it's certainly more than OK, figure an A minus by me. I put some time into The Cellar Door Sessions, which has tremendous word-of-mouth, but when it didn't connect after four-five passes I put it aside. In general I think alternate takes boxes are specialists-and-collectors-only profit takers. If you range as wide musically as I do you don't need that kind of marginal differentiation. But Jack Johnson is a record I adored from the git, an eccentric call at the time, so that particular case made sense for me.

[A] Not nearly as much as if he had been born a salamander.