16 Biggest Hits [Digipak]

Performer: Roy Orbison
Engineer: Carlos Grier; Eric Conn
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: All tracks have been digitally remastered using HDCD technology. Audio Remasterers: Denny Purcell; Jonathan Russell. The title here is, of course, not entirely accurate. None of Orbison's '80s material is here, which means no duets with Emmylou Harris or kd lang, and nothing from his Travelling Wilbury/final-stellar-solo-album period. This is, however, pretty much the best of Orbison's '60s tenure at Monument Records, and within those confines it's something of an embarrassment of riches, with all the big, paranoid operatic ballads that Orbison more or less patented--"Running Scared," "Only the Lonely," "Crying,"--along with more conventional, albeit ethereally lovely songs like "Blue Bayou" and "In Dreams." There's also a smattering of rockers including "Pretty Woman," whose opening guitar riff is by now imprinted on the basic genetic material of most of the human race. Obviously, essential listening.

Roy Orbison, a seminal rock & roll singer who initially recorded for the legendary Sun Records, created some of the most enduring hits of the 1950s and '60s. His near-operatic voice and dark, broken-hearted songs influenced a generation of artists. His songs and arrangements, almost symphonic in scope, set the template for pop sophistication in the early-to-mid-'60s. After a late-'80s comeback that included collaborations with Bono and Elvis Costello and a stint with the rock super-group the Travelling Wilburys, Orbison died of a heart attack in 1988.

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