Lady in Satin

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2025: #17. An album wherein the singer didn't write any of the songs. (31st Album)

Might be a bit of a cheat to choose an album full of standards, but rules are rules.

Overall, a decent collection of melancholic standards sung by the queen of the bluesy jazz. I can't really say there are standouts, since all of them follow the same pattern of a smoky lounge bar sing along. But this one is different from that Frank Sinatra, or the black blues kind. This is much heavier, with the accent being Billie's alcohol shot vocals, which are akin to a haunting ghost in a theater. Worth checking out, if anything for the historical importance it carries.

The opposite to Pantera. So that's nice.

I think this might be the only Billie Holiday on this list, which seems like an actual crime.

God this was a slog. Good singer but damn did this make me want to fall asleep.

A great voice but it's not my cup of tea

Billie Holiday has such a unique and beautiful voice. It sounds a bit strained on her last album here, but she still makes it sound good. When you’re in the right mood, this is a perfect laid back jazzy/bluesy album

Those sweeping strings certainly give away the album’s age. Then Billie Holiday starts singing, and suddenly that seems beside the point. Her voice is rough and fragile, but I love how much expression she finds in a single line. Sometimes it’s a word she holds onto; sometimes it’s the way she lets a phrase trail away. I find myself hanging on those little details.

The orchestra gives everything a grand, romantic setting, while Billie makes it feel painfully personal. Her voice doesn’t blend neatly into the arrangements, and that contrast is what gets me. I might find all those strings rather sentimental with another singer, but she gives them something much harder to dismiss. Old-fashioned, certainly — but it still gets under my skin.

Listening to Lady in Satin feels like watching a legend fade out, and honestly, it’s a tough sit. You can really hear how worn down her voice was by this point, that classic range is gone, replaced by a gravelly, fragile tone that’s pretty hard to ignore. While you can still hear those signature emotional phrasings she’s famous for, the syrupy, over-the-top backing music just doesn’t fit; it feels way too schmaltzy and keeps clashing with her vocals instead of lifting them up.

Beyond the tragic backstory, it's not her best work... I would have put "Lady Sings The Blues" on this list instead, and the whole record is just kind of a slog. Everything blurs into one long, forty-minute sigh where the tempo and the mood never really change. It’s definitely heavy to hear an icon pouring her heart out like this, but musically, it’s just too monotonous and drags on forever. It’s a pretty disappointing way to remember someone as legendary as Billie Holiday.

More oldies! Vocal jazz though - she wanted it to feel similar to Ella's songbook, and I think it does (although blessedly, much shorter). I don't really know any of the songs, but I like the backing music :D? Not that I dislike the singing, but as is the case with jazz, there's no hooks!! So it's kinda boring to listen to as an album.

Delaware: Cab Calloway also sang 'I'll Be Around', and he's the namesake of the school I consider the Torrey Pines of Delaware.

Magnetic Fields: 'My Only Friend' features the lyric, "Hey, Lady Day, can you save my life this time?"

Highlights: The full title of 'I Get Along Without You Very Well' is apparently 'I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)', which is a funny title, but better yet, it was written by Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael. Now that's a name. Meet my sons, Blimpie, Hoagy, and Grinder.

The Good: We know what the Lady is wearing...
The Bad: When we remove the satin, we find the lady is wearing something else...
The Ugly: Lady is a tramp...

So, the aficionado crowd will love this... I don't
Why? Well, sometimes the missus and I are walking through the city, and we will start pinching one and other when another "forever young" comes walking by...

Though I know mrs Holiday had a very strong voice and persona, to me, this album is like watching DLR currently touring, or any of the '80s rockers who should have hung up their spurs a while back.

I don't care that this is considered gold... it is unpolished silver that looks like it should be placed back in the musky backroom where it was found.

2 1/2* which i am still uncertain if I should bump it up or not?

Good background noise #2

it's really good for what it is, but it's a little too long. She has a very distinct voice that's awesome, but over an hour it's too much. I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could, but since I can't, I'll give it 4 stars so I seem sophisticated.

Her voice is incredible and this includes the gorgeous I Get Along Without You Very Well but it is very much mood music and something that gives off a such a relaxed vibe it rolls over you like a wave and is gone.

Such an iconic performer. Her voice is uniquely identifiable even here, late in her career. The vocal jazz ballad isn’t really my thing but it’s hard to deny how powerful she could make that. Her importance to popularizing jazz cannot be overlooked either.

i just can’t get behind anything pre-65

Classic voice. I wish the album tracks had more of a range in style, however.

Favorite track(s): I'm a Fool to Want You, For Heaven's Sake, You Don't Know What Love Is, Violets for Your Furs

Good music for any kind of grief. Bawled my eyes out to the first three songs. Thanks, Lady Day.

It's a Billie Holiday album. It's awesome. Maybe it's a bit too much of a good thing in spots? Could use additional variation but that's more emblematic of the time than anything. Lord knows most Ink Spots and Brook Benton albums of the era have the same issue. Still pretty great! Love the outtakes at the end.

This is good but not for me

I don't like writing reviews that talk about other people on this site but this time I can't help myself.
This currently sits below Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle. An album that I can best describe as extremely misogynistic. This Billie Holiday record has multiple reviews call this album boring or slow, effectively saying it's something they couldn't engage with. I want to preface that people are allowed their opinion and preferring one album over the other does make you a bad person (maybe a little lol) but it does show a pattern in reviews on this site that I wanted to complain about.
I feel like a lot of users on this site find it difficult to sit with music and actually listen to it. This is a beautiful album about heartache and pain that if you take the time to listen will give you a lot back. Lovely composition and Billie's voice is of course beautiful. I find it upsetting a woman making music with such beauty is quickly tagged as dull while a man singing about his sexist exploits is given more of a pass.

I know that gap in reviews between these two is small and there reviews on both albums that go against what I'm saying, but it's a pattern I keep seeing that album by men which sound exciting and bombastic but maybe have questionable views are celebrated so quickly while something a bit slower and more thoughtful is so quickly thrown away, and unfortunately it seems doubly so if its made by a woman or person of colour. It makes me sad that Billie Holidays was one of them that certain people have dubbed as boring.

It was a tiny bit repetitive tho.

Billie's life was one of excess, and it shows in this album, released only a year before her death. She was considered the greatest singer of her times, but here you can hear the damage of her smoking, drinking and drug abuse. It's a shame, because the music is still beautiful, and there's real deep emotion in her songs, and one can only imagine how much more powerful she could have been without her declining health.

She's still considered one of the greatest singers of all times for a reason, she really has a way to soothe your soul, even if she doesn't come close to the likes of Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald or Doris Day.

The songs are all kind of samey though. A perfect album to put as background music for a dinner, or even while studying but is it something I would listen to just for the sake of it? No.