This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Nancy Sinatra is cool. Sure, she’s 64. And she hasn’t put out an album of all-new material since Richard Nixon was in office. Never mind all that; she’s still cool.
How do you know? Because Bono, The Edge, Morrissey, Steven Van Zandt, Pete Yorn, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and Calexico clearly think so. They all showed up to lend a song, a hand or just add a dash of contemporary cred on this self-titled comeback disc from the ’60s pop icon whose white go-go boots were made for walking (and rocking).
If that lineup’s a surprise, here’s something that shouldn’t be: Some of these cuts aren’t half bad. Van Zandt’s Baby Please Don’t Go is a jangly bauble of hooky garage-pop; Calexico’s Burnin’ Down the Spark is a twangy swirl of their dusty south-of-the-border roots; Yorn’s Don’t Mean Nothing is a bitterly bouncy country cut; Morrissey’s Let Me Kiss You is a swelling anthem of romantic pop; U2’s Two Shots off Happy, One Shot of Sad is a poignant salute to Nancy’s dad Frank; and Moore’s spooky, dissonant Momma’s Boy makes it clear how big an influence Nancy was on Kim Gordon.
If there’s one drawback to Nancy Sinatra the album, however, it’s Nancy the artist. Never the strongest singer, her voice is far from its peak — on most cuts she sounds rusty and barely in tune; on virtually all of them her deadpan delivery makes her sound distracted or even bemused, as if she has no idea who she’s singing with. Which, let’s be honest, is probably the case on at least a few of these cuts. After all: Just becuase Nancy is still cool, that doesn’t mean she’s hip.
