Robin Zander: Fly Me to the Moon (2011)

On the basis of recent evidence Robin Zander -- singer with the smarter-than-thou Cheap Trick -- has really lost it. Lost his cheekbones, his slim frame and, worst of all because those are forgivably inevitable with advancing years, his sense of taste.

Perhaps it was having uber-brain Rick Nielsen helming Cheap Trick that allowed them to pull off three superb albums in a row -- and deliver a thrillingly exact but pumped up version of the Beatles' Daytripper live -- but out on his own, as he is here, the plot left town long before Zander arrived.

Okay, maybe he isn't entirely at fault because it was the idea of Bob Kulick and Brett Chassen -- self-described "guys from Planet Brooklyn" -- to do an album of Frank Sinatra songs . . . but not your standard tribute, as it were.

Kulick/Chassen somehow heard Sinatra ballads as . . . well, metal-edged stadium rock.

So they invited in Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, Joey Belladonna, Glen Hughes and other leather-lunged screamers to  take on songs like New York New York, I've Got You Under My Skin, Summer Wind and so on.

Zander got Fly Me to the Moon which you might remember -- as Frank does in the clip below -- as a rather lovely swinging song.

Seemingly Zander at al didn't. They reshaped it into this truly awful cover for the album -- consumer warning, folks -- Sin-Atra.

Get it?

Nope, me neither. 

For more one-offs, songs with an interesting backstory or oddities see From the Vaults.