This two-disc compilation offers up 30 popular songs recorded in the year 1953. It was an interesting time in American culture as rock & roll still hadn't broken through and much of the era's popular music was still dominated by pop crooners like
Dean Martin
("That's Amore"),
Tony Bennett
("Rags to Riches"), and
Rudy Vallee
("As Time Goes By"). With the cold war in effect,
President Eisenhower
announced the arrival of the hydrogen bomb in January of 1953 and the pop charts reflected the country's need for familiar, comforting sounds.
Ray Anthony
's theme from the popular show Dragnet offered up some wonderfully ham-fisted drama and
Patti Page
wondered how much was that doggy in the window. Many of these holdouts from an earlier era still had much to offer and weren't merely lighter sounds overcompensating for a darker time. But in June of that year, the first Corvette rolled out of a Chevy plant in Flint, Michigan and its throaty rumble was a harbinger of changes to come as popular music would quickly become more freewheeling and wild. Just one year later a young
Elvis Presley
would record "That's All Right" and change popular music forever. ~ Timothy Monger