Crooner is an epithet given to a male singer of a certain style of popular songs, ubbed pop standards. A crooner is a singer of popular ballads and thus a "balladeer". The singer is normally backed by a full orchestra or big band. Generally, crooners sang and popularized the songs from the Great American Songbook. Crooner was originally bestowed as a negative term, and many people given the term, such as Russ Colombo, did not consider themselves to be crooners. In an interview, Frank Sinatra said that he did not consider himself or Bing Crosby to be crooners.