These are not original observations; people who had the fortune to grow up with Sinatra already knew. I first caught on when, while listening to a Sinatra greatest-hits album I had bought for a girlfriend as an ironic courtship gesture--I was young, it was the '80s — the song Strangers in the Night caught my ear. It's an admittedly queer place to start amid the glories of the Sinatra canon, a chintzy little hit from 1966 with a dopey pop-rock arrangement; the singer himself gives it the brush-off with his famous dooby-dooby-doo coda during the fade-out. But not everyone can start with What Is This Thing Called Love?, and even here Sinatra manages to invest the ticky-tacky lyrics — "Strangers in the night/ Exchanging glances/ Wondering in the night/ What were the chances" — with a palpable yearning that transcends, maybe even exalts its surroundings. I was hooked.

This, really, is my point: masterpieces — like Songs for Swingin' Lovers! — are easy to love. They are what we remember artists for, but they aren't always as illuminating, or as cherishable, as the failures and throwaways. More often than not, even Sinatra's crud speaks his virtues. You can't ask much more of a performer than that.

Bruce Handy writes TIME's Spectator column. He thought he'd be sick of Sinatra by now

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