Diana Ross & The Supremes – The #1s (CD)
Sound:
B- Music: B
Even
after the recent commercial successes of Mariah Carey, Brittany Spears, Janet
Jackson, and Whitney Houston, Diana Ross’ sales and chart successes
endure. This can be traced back to her
vocal group days as part of the five young ladies originally called The
Primettes. Of course, they became more
famous after a name change and Diana
Ross & The Supremes – The #1s is the latest of many attempts to put
together some kind of collection of Ross’ Motown hits from 1962 – 1982.
After the
mixed boxed set that had its share of text mistakes and glaring track omissions
when Motown was under Polygram Records, Universal eventually bought them out
and the songs were remastered for the 20th Century Masters
Millennium Collection series. Two
Supremes sets (including one without Ross’ work) and one Ross solo CD were
issued in all. Unlike the Polygram
copies, which had horrible remastering, the Universal tracks were more like the
actual Motown Sound. It was restoration
and the first time they ever sounded right on CD. The earliest Motown Compact Performance CDs
(1986) were some of the weakest CDs ever pressed.
With new
digital technology, Universal has decided to go back to the master tapes
(inspired no doubt by their successful Deluxe Edition double CD set of Diana (1980), reviewed elsewhere on
this site) and do yet another set. The
results are not what they should be, as once again, the character and design
that gave the early song their sound has been mixed out. Character has been mistaken for hiss and
background noise, resulting in something akin to advanced versions of the
Polygram disasters. Suha Gux has brought
vocals so forward that it often puts the music of the legendary Funk Brothers
in the background too far back overall for its own good, then only accentuates
things like the bass line. The only
exception is where we get alternate versions of the familiar hits, which sort
of flies in the face of the title of this set.
The tracks are as follows:
1)
Where Did Our Love Go?
2)
Baby Love (alt. ending)
3)
Come See About Me
4)
Stop! In The Name Of Love (version without fadeout)
5)
Back In My Arms Again (version without fadeout)
6)
I Hear A Symphony (alt take with more vocals)
7)
You Can’t Hurry Love
8)
You Keep Me Hangin’ On
9)
Love Is Here & Now You’re Gone
10) The Happening (Theme from the motion picture,
longer cut)
11) Reflections (alt. version with more vocal
snippets, no fadeout)
12) Love Child (alt. cut with a few more vocal
snippets)
13) I’m Gonna Make You Love Me (duet with The Temptations)
14) Someday We’ll Be Together
15) Stone Love (Jean Terrell taking over for
Ross)
16) Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (short version)
17) Touch Me In The Morning
18) Mahogany (The Theme From)
19) Love Hangover (Shorter single version)
20) The Boss
21) Upside Down
22) I’m Coming Out
23) Endless Love (duet with Lionel Ritchie
version)
24) You Keep Me Hangin’ On – The
Almighty Mix
If the
music is downtraded in the earlier tracks, the later solo Ross tracks sound
unusually compressed and not as open or naturalistic as they had in the version
that appear on the Deluxe Diana
set. Making vocals closer is not
equivalent to clarity either. The other
disturbing thing about the early tracks is how they sidestep the culture of
struggle and triumph the music was during The Civil Rights Movement and take
far too many liberties in their alternate being as if the it versions never
mattered. The last thing we need is a
Forest Gumping of the Motown Sound.
On Love Child, the open echo of the urban
nightmare Ross’ character suffers in the shadow of the inner city is replaced
by a false sense of warmth that minimalizes the poverty and shame her character
suffers. Reflections is here in an alternate take I never liked. How can anyone reflect on anything with the
cornball ending of a vocal finish more suited to the Copa? The additional vocal points break the
psychedelic and surrealistic intent of this groundbreaking use of electronic
sounds. The throbbing organ chord that
opens Stop! In The Name Of Love feels
stopped up itself. I hear limits in the
beautiful string section on I Hear A
Symphony. The mountain in Ain’t No Mountain High Enough suddenly
does not seem so high to climb. And on Love Hangover, if she does not want a
cure for it, it might be because she does not sound as far gone as she should
to begin with. Did Ross even approve of
these mixes?
As for
the remix of You Keep Me Hangin’ On,
it is so wacky that Phil Collins might as well have shown up as a fourth
Supreme. It is too oddball and feels
like a party gag. The resulting sound of
the PCM CD Stereo overall is a disappointment for what can be done with this
sound today. It looks like it is going
to take a DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD to get these songs right, but unless you
want the alternate versions discussed, you are better off getting the 20th
Century Masters Millennium Collection series CDs while they remain in print.
- Nicholas Sheffo
