Originally,
Frank Sinatra had planned to record
Only the Lonely with
Gordon Jenkins, who had arranged his previous all-ballads album
Where Are You? Jenkins was unavailable at the time of the sessions, which led
Sinatra back to his original arranger at
Capitol,
Nelson Riddle. The result is arguably his greatest ballads album.
Only the Lonely follows the same formula as his previous albums, but the tone is considerably bleaker and more desperate.
Riddle used a larger orchestra for the album than he had in the past, which lent the album a stately, nearly classical atmosphere. At its core, however, the album is a set of brooding saloon songs, highlighted by two of
Sinatra's tour de forces -- "Angel Eyes" and "One for My Baby."
Sinatra never forces emotion out of the lyric, he lets everything flow naturally, with grace. It's a heartbreaking record, the ideal late-night album.
[
Only the Lonely saw its fair share of reissues prior to this 60th Anniversary Edition, which means the vaults were emptied of unreleased material by the time this double-disc edition appeared in 2018. That left
Capitol with one route: to upgrade the mono audio and develop a new stereo mix from the original three-track masters. Although the mono sounds warm and inviting, the stereo mix is the set's real calling card and it's exquisite: rich and enveloping, opening up the original mono without losing sight of its feel or sense of space. The 60th Anniversary edition also contains session takes for "Angel Eyes" and "Lush Life," along with a test track of "One for My Baby" and an alternate take of "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry," and while they're all welcome, it's the new stereo mix that makes this worth another purchase by hardcore
Sinatra fans.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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