Don't Get It? You'll Grow Into It

In the '90s, the crooner became hot. Again.

This time, it was for yet another generation - Generation X. Tony Bennett did an MTV special. Harry Connick Jr. earned millions covering the great songs from the Swing Era. And Frank Sinatra recorded a series of duets with the younger set, including a version of "I've Got You Under My Skin" with U2's Bono who deemed Frank "cool" for the kids.

So what is all the hype about?

To answer that, I go back a couple years to 1928. That was the year Sy, my dad, was born. A Brooklyn native, he came of age in the '40s, when swing and crooners were the pop of the day. He often told me about his teen-age escapes to dance halls, where men in zoot suits flung women around to the beat of the big bands. For Sy, there was only one man amongst many musical boys: Frank Sinatra.

Born in the 1960s, I was forced to listen over and over again to Dad's albums, and more often than not, it was Frank being spun on my parent's "hi-fi." Dad would get a look in his eyes, and the next thing I'd know, it was Mom being flung around the living room.

I hated it. I'd bristle every time I'd hear those opening notes of "New York, New York."

Thankfully, I was able to escape to college. Suddenly on my own, I was free to come and go as I pleased, with making it to class on time as my only responsibility. And I never had to listen to Frank ever again.

During a trip home that freshman year, I heard an intriguing sound. Gentle acoustic guitar chords, over a steady, jazz beat and a man singing in a foreign language in soft, cool phrasing. It was the sound, Dad would tell me, of Antonio Carlos Jobim, a Brazilian artist. It was lovers' music, and I could easily imagine appropriating it for late night, amorous adventures in my dorm room.

Then it happened. The language turned from Portuguese to English.

It was Frank.

No gaudy wedding tunes. No loud, blaring big bands. Just clean, romantic and, for me, very different music. I loved it. Dad just stood there, looking at me. He had known all along that this day would come.

With that jumping-off point established, I was able to ease into Frank's other works, eventually becoming a big, big fan.

Spinning ahead to today, I believe that Frankie-mania persists not because he's "hot" again, but because he was never really that "cold."

The music isn't about my father's era or your father's era. It's about a time in your life when you're confident of the future and, more importantly, the present; about being young, but old enough to be on your own; about holding on to your youth. And that is what the hype is all about.

Frank just helps to facilitate that feeling - a feeling that each generation must discover on its own.

Despite the years that have passed and the changes in my life, Frank's music takes me back to when I was heady, confident, and just out on my own. I'm sure for my Dad it does, too.

Written by CBS.com's Adam Wiener
Graphic Design by Fred LaSenna