JUBILEE 5016; OCTOBER, 1949

 

Yesterday in the review for the top side of this release we offered a very public hand-wringing over our slightly premature criticism for The Orioles stylistic repetitiveness that comprised a prominent part of the original version of that essay.

That unpublished screed went into great detail about their shamelessly attempting to capture the exact same mood as their breakthrough hit with a series of songs that featured similar sentiments of heartfelt yearning over ponderously slow tempos, all using the same bare-bones arrangements with absolutely no change in their vocal approach. But this struck us as unfair because on that record all of those recycled components worked to great effect, giving them not only a huge hit but a record which justified their popularity.

We clearly jumped the gun and so realizing this we attempted to do right by them by re-writing the review before it was published on these pages. In that new piece however we did say that we’d cover the topic of their commercial and creative downturn at a later time.

This is now that time.

 
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