It's actually a wonder that The Supremes managed to last as long as they did. They took their sweet old time trying to have a hit single only to then start reeling them off one after another, with a success rate second only to The Beatles during the mid-sixties. Yet, by 1968, they appeared to be headed down the dumper. Chart places suffered. Tension within the trio mounted. Amid a dispute over royalties, longtime in-house songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown. Label boss Berry Gordy had been not so subtly grooming Diana Ross for a solo career. The quality of their singles had become inconsistent.
Eventually the decision was made to keep the golden goose going for a while longer. Longtime member Florence Ballard was out, replaced by Cindy Birdsong. A re-brand to 'The Supremes with Diana Ross' was then scrapped in favour of 'Diana Ross and the Supremes'. They had a new group of songwriters/producers working with them known as The Clan. (Seriously, The Clan? Jesus, Motown, read the freaking room!) This would be just what they'd need to carry them forward just as Stevie Wonder had begun maturing as an artist, as Marvin Gaye's work began to get more gritty and as the Four Tops reached their zenith.
While I can certainly understand the appeal, there's something unlikable about "Love Child". It's too busy, too over-stuffed with ambitious ideas that the song and The Supremes themselves seem to get overwhelmed. Tom Breihan perceptively points out in his glowing review that it anticipates disco by a decade but it's a brand of seventies' dance music that hasn't worked itself out yet. "Don't fuck with the formula" is what Beach Boy Mike Love is supposed to have said - and he almost certainly did say so, if not in so many words — and it's a point that is worth considering, especially when there's really no direction to the music that is being made. While The Beach Boys went from strength to strength creatively (even while their commercial prospects dwindled), Motown's stable had more mixed results when it came to moving forward. With the trio of Ross, Mary Wilson and Ballard (and, now, Birdsong) left out of the decision making process for the most part, committees seemed to be calling the shots. Finding a balance between their established perfect soul-pop and some kind of future direction proved to be impossible. While a brave attempt, "Love Child" is at best a semi-failure that did manage to really give Ross an increasing amount of the spotlight.
And yet the score I have given it below is right in the middle of the 'not bad' range even though I have almost nothing good to say about it. I can barely get through its three minutes. What can I say, it gets bonus points for its ambition and for it cleverly predicting the future. Mind you, this isn't even strictly down to the record itself. The real future it foretells is that of a pop scene without The Supremes — or, better yet, one in which The Supremes were able to return to being a fine pop group without the pressures of their mid-sixties' imperial period hanging round their collective necks. It also predicts Diana Ross' solo career, which, much like her old group, was a mixed bag itself. Much as singer and group may have once needed each other, they were probably better off apart from this point forward. Thus concludes The Supremes' relevancy in this space — and I can't say I'll be sorry to see them go.
No comments:
Post a Comment