Paul Anka

Paul Anka

Musician

Forfans of traditional pop and swing, listeners curious about bold cover projects, and collectors of novelty reinterpretations.
2 Reviews 1 Definitions 7 Charts

The Profile

Paul Anka (born 1941) is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter and former teen idol, known for hits such as "Diana" and for writing the English lyrics to "My Way."

Anka rose to fame in the late 1950s and 1960s as a teen idol and recording artist. In 2005 he released Rock Swings, a studio album of swing-style covers of famous rock songs. He is publicly credited with writing the English lyrics for "My Way."

Paul Anka's 2005 Rock Swings is a cover album that turns famous rock songs into swing standards. Reviewers praise the novelty, arrangements and some standout tracks, but criticize the operation as commercially driven and occasionally incongruous. Reactions range from amused appreciation to discomfort at the emotional mismatch. Overall, a divisive but notable experiment.

Notable Quotes

❝ Everything is swing.

❝ This fastidious, merely and (not even so) cunningly commercial operation (ethically, one might wonder what truly isn't/becomes, in the musical realm and whoever the author might be, "commercial/profitable," once recorded and put up for sale...) does not prevent one from appreciating the novel yet daring and mellifluous pop-swinging (covering) vocalisms contained in such a charming mass-market work;