Frank Sinatra - Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely

Look past the tacky, sad-clown velvet painting on the cover (a Grammy-winner for album design in 1959!), there's nothing cheap or sentimental about this record--the bleakest and blackest album of popular songs ever recorded, so quietly powerful it can leave you slumped in your chair with the ice cubes still rattling in your glass. Every single "suicide song" (as Sinatra liked to call 'em) on Only the Lonely is a stunner that will take your breath away. Nelson Riddle's arrangements are like shadows, almost colorless and motionless, so that all you hear is the ache in the singer's voice. "Angel Eyes" and "One for My Baby" each deserve an album to themselves-- so exquisitely moving that at the end of three minutes you feel like you've just heard a lifetime of loneliness. My only regret--and it's a big one--is that this flawless masterpiece doesn't include Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life," which truly belongs here; Sinatra put it into an already overcrowded recording schedule and, when fatigue and the difficulty of the song defeated him after a couple takes, he gave up and never attempted it again. We got the chillingly lovely "Willow Weep For Me" instead, so I'm really not complaining--but that just adds to the pang of loss that this album expresses so vividly. Drink up! --Jim Emerson Amazon.com essential recording

Blue Eyes

This is one of the better albums, yes I'm old, that I have in my collection. Would recommend it to everyone September 30, 2008

Sinatra and Riddle create a Classic

I would be hard pressed to say which of the many albums Sinatra made is the best, then this 1958 colloboration with Nelson Riddle would be it. Every song on this sounds like the definitive version like "Angel Eyes", "What's New?", "Ebb Tide", "Guess I'LL Hang My Tears Out to Dry" or that old saloon song, "One for My Baby". This album is as much Riddle's as it is Frank's--their sensitivity and empathy are felt throughout this great classic. If you want to know more about Nelson's life, do check out the book, "September in the Rain" which delves deeply into his relationshop with Sinatra as well as another giant, Nat King Cole. September 28, 2008

The Ultimate Sinatra

This is Sinatra at his best. The voice is pure, the phrasing is perfect, and the pathos and passion in the lyrics are delivered as only Old Blue Eyes can. If you feel the need to mourn a lost love, just play Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, and you will experience your heartache all over again. July 7, 2008

Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely

Its a good listen, hey its Sinatra. But no where as good as his album "In the wee small hours in the morning." Now that is Sinatra. If you don't have it, get it. June 7, 2008

Sinatra Goes Blue

Nelson Riddle's arrangements for this album are inspired. The sensitivity and flair with which he approaches each song, achieving a distinct and definitive interpretation of each one, is alone worth the price of this album. But to then have Sinatra at his best as well, makes it irresistible. This is a melancholy album, make no mistake; the songs are mostly slow, blue and often deeply moving; I've never heard "Angel Eyes", "What's New" or "One For My Baby" done with such depth of feeling and masterly control. If you are in a mood to take sad music, images of devastated love, reflections on what might have been, this album will take you through it all and out the other side, leaving you the better for it. It makes a good, though totally contrasting, companion to "Songs For Swingin' Lovers". May 24, 2008

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