#52 Diana Ross And The Supremes- Greatest Hits

Supreme by name…

(Tamla Motown)

Released: January 1968

Producer: Brian Holland & Lamont Dozier

Topped the chart:

11^th February 1968 (for 3 weeks)

3 weeks total

When you look at the track listing of this greatest hits album from The Supremes, it’s wild to think that for a long time at Motown they were nicknamed “The No Hits Supremes.” But that’s what they were known as for several years in the early 60s as a string of frankly pretty rubbish singles failed to go anywhere (an abortive attempt to bring banjo into the Detroit sound; a dirty song about popcorn- it’s a metaphor, obviously; among many other ignoble failures).

Thankfully, things changed in November 1963, with the marathon-titled When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes did indeed shine a light on the band for the American record-buying public, firing Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wells into the top 25 of the Billboard Charts for the first time. From there, the band would go on to become the second most successful group of the 1960s, second only to the mighty Beatles.

This compilation represents their imperial phase as a group, Lovelight thankfully the furthest back we reach, all the way up to 1967’s Reflections and The Happening, both selling over a million copies in the US alone. In between those points we have a grand total of ten US number one singles- though interestingly their sole UK number one single is saved for the very end.

Though there is a commonly held belief that Ballard had the better voice, it’s the flexibility of Diana Ross’ voice that makes her such a star. Most comfortable in a tender Smokey Robinson range, Ross is able to dial up the intensity when needed on something like You Keep Me Hangin’ On, or to soften up even more to a soft coo on the appropriately titled Whisper You Love Me Boy. It’s this sense of flexible performance over power that sets The Supremes apart from the Four Tops, where Levi Stubbs would start most songs at a nine and then have nowhere else to go.

Ross’ diva reputation- sometimes fairly earned, sometimes less so- wasn’t the sole reason for the band’s extraordinary success, but in many ways it was the way they and the production/writing team of Holland-Dozier-Holland interpreted the songs they were recording. Like The Beatles, they were able to take the 50s sounds from their teenage years and then propel them into the future thanks to the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland and backing from the legendary Motown house band The Funk Brothers. Lovelight, for example, initially feels like a Glenn Miller big band sound combined with Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production- an intro that feels a little passe. But when combined with their signature hook, handclaps and foot stomps added front-and-centre thanks to new-fangled multitrack technology, the song absolutely leaps out of the groove, and it’s far from the only one to do so.

Most of the hit singles here need no introduction, even 60 years later. You Can’t Hurry Love and Stop! In the Name of Love are gleeful in their sheer forward momentum, still sounding like they could have been released yesterday. Baby Love, that sole UK number one from 1964, comes on softer but is again powered by hands and feet on the backing track with a first note so recognisable it would provide the entire basis for Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black four decades later. Then there’s You Keep Me Hangin’ On where Ballard and Wells’ backing vocals really come into their own against that tumbling, ringing guitar riff.

Not that the rest of the hits gathered here pale in comparison- pretty much everything has something to offer. Love is Like an Itching in My Heart might sound like something Diana Ross should get some cream for, but appropriately it’s immediately catchy, bringing sleazy horns and a proto-disco bass groove into the Supreme sound. Where Did Our Love Go yearns like nothing else recording to wax, while Ross’ wounded emotions are deepened on My World is Empty Without You, and Whisper You Love Me Boy delivers the coquettish coo of someone discovering sex for the first time.

I Hear a Symphony is The Supremes real masterpiece though, and might just be the best song that Holland-Dozier-Holland have been involved in. It’s certainly one of their most ambitious, looking to classical music to mix up the Supremes formula by trying a new and more complex structure. It’s a meltingly romantic and sweeping epic in less than three minutes. These days, the spiralling key changes might have been dated thanks to the work of 90s boybands like Backstreet Boys and Westlife turning the key change into a cliché, but back in the 60s it must’ve sounded like a stairway up to heaven.

As a compilation, Greatest Hits is held back from one of the same issues that impacted The Four Tops’ collection: track listing. As with that previous album, these songs seem to have been thrown together at complete random, with no thought for how the record might flow. The version released to American audiences handles this better by going chronologically, allowing a listener to hear the development of the band’s sound. However, though born of the same production team, the material that The Supremes were given was simply more impressive than that provided to The Four Tops, and there’s no doubt that pretty much every track here is essential to the Motown story.

It’s a good time for a release like this from The Supremes as changes were afoot- though she features on every track, Florence Ballard was no longer a part of the band upon the compilation’s release, and they had only very recently become Diana Ross and The Supremes, a sign of things to come as Ross would only be around for another year or so before launching an enormous solo career. We will see the band once more before then but make no mistake: this compilation is Motown at the peak of its powers.

Score: 9/10

Tracklisting:

SIDE A

1.      Stop! In the Name of Love

2.      Nothing But Heartaches

3.      When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes

4.      My World is Empty Without You

5.      Where Did Our Love Go

6.      Love is Like an Itching in My Heart

7.      Come See About Me

8.      I Hear a Symphony

SIDE B

9.      Reflections

10.  Back in My Arms Again

11.  You Keep Me Hangin’ On

12.  Whisper You Love Me Boy

13.  The Happening

14.  Love is Here and Now You’re Gone

15.  You Can’t Hurry Love

16.  Baby Love