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Few musicians have effectively sidestepped the descent into mediocrity. Even fewer have remained truly great up until their deaths, and ascended into legends long after. Johnny Cash, Lee Hazelwood, and Lou Reed are among this musical elite. And then there\u2019s Roy Orbison. Though most famous for recording \u201cIt\u2019s Over\u201d and \u201c Oh, Pretty Woman,\u201d in 1964, Orbison has written, recorded and produced some of the most original and memorable ballads in pop music history. As part of the golden legacy of Sam Phillips\u2019 Sun Records, Orbison has had a total of 22 songs placed on the Billboard Top 40, and boasted a phenomenal vocal range that stretched three or four octaves. This ability to transition between baritone and tenor popularized Orbison as \u201cthe Caruso of rock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Orbison\u2019s most prolific years were the 1960s, his posthumously released final record Mystery Girl <\/em>is one of the finest departing albums I\u2019ve ever heard. Recorded in the Fall of 1988 three months before its release, Mystery Girl <\/em>is a flawless pop-opus which touts production quality as slick as Orbison\u2019s signature onyx pompadour.<\/p>\n

The album is a sonic homage to mid-century American pop-rock-n\u2019roll, a fitting soundscape considering the era\u2019s cultural revival in the late 1980s. Mystery Girl <\/em>includes songs written by giants of the industry: Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne (of ELO), and Elvis Costello to name a few. Its cast of producers is no less impressive. Mike Campbell (of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers), T-Bone Burnett, and Brian Eno highlight Orbison’s own distinct production style.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou Got It,\u201d the record\u2019s opening track, is one of the most recognizable. This is in part due its use in advertising. It is an upbeat number that recalls a breezy summer romance in the 1960s-or at least what our lens of synthetic nostalgia renders that to seem like. It\u2019s a great pop song, but the meat of this album lies in the sweet melancholy of its more orchestral tracks.<\/p>\n

Chief among these is \u201cIn the Real World,” which ranks with Orbison\u2019s great songs of heartache. The song is distinctly Orbison, beginning with the gentle strum of a Spanish guitar and a single thread of that signature\u00a0quivering croon. With haunting backing vocals and the emotive use of strings, it possesses the same sweeping quality of his early work, leaving the listener in a somnolent limbo between misery and bliss. This is the Orbison condition: an ambivalence that results from a sound so beautiful, you\u2019d rather die than go on listening (or die before\u00a0listening to anything else).<\/p>\n

This condition is perfected on the album\u2019s near-title track \u201cShe\u2019s a Mystery to Me\u201d which was written for Orbison by U2 members Bono and The Edge. The song\u2019s power is undeniable. Orbison\u2019s voice is sorrowful and slips over you like opium molasses: slow, astringently sweet, and twice as addictive. Meanwhile the orchestral accompaniment concocts a warm-whiskey sound that dissipates outward from the sternum to the cuticles. It\u2019s the perfect medicine for gluttons of sorrow. The all-star credits continue from there; Elvis Costello\u2019s contribution to the album is the tragic \u201cThe Comedians\u201d which delivers Costello\u2019s patented contrast between audible joy and verbal dejection. That\u00a0Costello had written the song makes perfect sense in retrospect, but when Orbison sings it, it becomes his instantly.<\/p>\n

My favorite song on the record is undoubtedly \u201cShe\u2019s a Mystery to Me,\u201d but a neck-and-neck second is \u201cThe Only One,\u201d written by Craig Wiseman and\u00a0Orbison\u2019s son Wesley. While \u201cShe\u2019s a Mystery to Me\u201d has a consistent sound throughout verse and chorus, \u201cThe Only One\u201d is far more dramatic. Its verse eases us into a simple and downtrodden ballad, and then the chorus crescendos into a crooning reprimand. The Orbison condition is contracted yet again.<\/p>\n

Though Roy Orbison was a permanent fixture in my musical rearing, I didn\u2019t hear this album (as far as I can remember) until two and a half years ago at a friend\u2019s apartment. I was dumbstruck immediately. Orbison’s voice is like butter – as in, you can put it on anything and it\u2019s improved tenfold – but I was still shocked at how timeless the record sounded. It at once seemed old, new, and impossible to date. It\u2019s sad that Mystery <\/em>Girl had to be the last album Orbison would ever record, but man, what a way to go out.<\/p>\n

Listen to \u201cShe\u2019s a Mystery to Me\u201d and \u201cThe Only One\u201d below:<\/p>\n