IT'S ALL BEEN SAID BEFORE / Supremes - 1975

[telekin]

Does Mary's voice have a certain quality to her that lent itself better for certain styles than others? Absolutely. But this tired, repeated notion that she couldn't carry an upbeat tune or wasn't commercial enough is a bit ridiculous. Anything is commercial regardless of its tempo and style. I don't think for a second that Mary's voice had anything to do with "He's My Man" not doing well on the charts.

Exactly this. I mean, there's also a lot of fan hairsplitting going on here, which is also par for the course on a fan group , naturally. I honestly don't think your average, casual listener would be able to make any of the distinctions we're making here.

I personally love Mary and Scherrie on He's My Man, and the more I listened to it, the more I loved that there were two vocal textures on display here. Speaking "technically," [[not really, but let's just say..) Mary starting off lower and more sensual doesn't take anything away from it to me. On the contrary, it gives the song dynamics. I don't think starting off at full-throttle and staying there would have improved things. It's to the song's benefit that you have Mary starting the song more softly and then Scherrie coming in and taking it to the top, to my ears. One may say that the lyrics are light and even a little silly, but for someone to have said that it's a song that "goes nowhere" is not really paying attention.

[RanRan79]

Exactly this. I mean, there's also a lot of fan hairsplitting going on here, which is also par for the course on a fan group , naturally. I honestly don't think your average, casual listener would be able to make any of the distinctions we're making here.

I personally love Mary and Scherrie on He's My Man, and the more I listened to it, the more I loved that there were two vocal textures on display here. Speaking "technically," [[not really, but let's just say..) Mary starting off lower and more sensual doesn't take anything away from it to me. On the contrary, it gives the song dynamics. I don't think starting off at full-throttle and staying there would have improved things. It's to the song's benefit that you have Mary starting the song more softly and then Scherrie coming in and taking it to the top, to my ears. One may say that the lyrics are light and even a little silly, but for someone to have said that it's a song that "goes nowhere" is not really paying attention.

As well as the song can, I think it works as is and would have worked with just Scherrie. Would it have worked with just Mary? I doubt it, but as I've said before, I wouldn't have guessed Mary could have pulled off "Early Morning Love" and for my taste she did a great job with it, so who knows?

I still think the chorus was corny as heck.

[Ollie9]

Exactly this. I mean, there's also a lot of fan hairsplitting going on here, which is also par for the course on a fan group , naturally. I honestly don't think your average, casual listener would be able to make any of the distinctions we're making here.

I personally love Mary and Scherrie on He's My Man, and the more I listened to it, the more I loved that there were two vocal textures on display here. Speaking "technically," [[not really, but let's just say..) Mary starting off lower and more sensual doesn't take anything away from it to me. On the contrary, it gives the song dynamics. I don't think starting off at full-throttle and staying there would have improved things. It's to the song's benefit that you have Mary starting the song more softly and then Scherrie coming in and taking it to the top, to my ears. One may say that the lyrics are light and even a little silly, but for someone to have said that it's a song that "goes nowhere" is not really paying attention.

I made that comment about going nowhere regarding “It’s All Been Said Before”. My opinion hasn’t changed.
”If “He’s My Man” was so knockout, why did it die a death. It certainly received enough tv promotion both in the USA and UK. Bottom line being it simply wasn’t a strong enough song to become a big hit. At best it remains a pleasant album track with a cheesy chorus.

[blackguy69]

That’s easy no radio play. They can promote any song on tv to death but if it isn’t played on the radio at least once an hour, then it’s dead on arrival

I made that comment about going nowhere regarding “It’s All Been Said Before”. My opinion hasn’t changed.
”If “He’s My Man” was so knockout, why did it die a death. It certainly received enough tv promotion both in the USA and UK. Bottom line being it simply wasn’t a strong enough song to become a big hit. At best it remains a pleasant album track with a cheesy chorus.

[Ollie9]

That’s easy no radio play. They can promote any song on tv to death but if it isn’t played on the radio at least once an hour, then it’s dead on arrival

Certainly not true in The UK where it received a considerable amount of airplay.

[blackguy69]

Not the same in the US

Certainly not true in The UK where it received a considerable amount of airplay.

[telekin]

I made that comment about going nowhere regarding “It’s All Been Said Before”. My opinion hasn’t changed.
”If “He’s My Man” was so knockout, why did it die a death. It certainly received enough tv promotion both in the USA and UK. Bottom line being it simply wasn’t a strong enough song to become a big hit. At best it remains a pleasant album track with a cheesy chorus.

I actually wasn't referring to your comment about IABSB Ollie9, I was referring to a comment jobeterob threw out over HMM. Sorry for not being more specific.

I can't say exactly why it was not a bigger hit. There could be any number of reasons why a song doesn't reach the top, and I've never really used charts as a barometer of quality or to guide my listening. They're mostly snapshots in time to me.

That being said though, I think the fact that it gave them a nice little disco hit has to have counted for something. At that point in disco, so much of it existed outside of the purview of record label promotion still mostly geared towards radio play, or even personal appearances - there was, in a sense, something pure and immediate about that.

To speculate a little bit - while there were already surprise disco hits, like Love's Theme by Love Unlimited Orchestra.. which became bestsellers because of disco and not radio, the industry at large had only just begun to harness the potential of the discos and the disco audience. There wasn't even a single disco chart yet in Billboard, and the first commercially available 12" single came out at least a year after Supremes '75 was released. So, while it didn't carry much momentum outside of the discos, HMM was enough to signal to the group and to the company that The Supremes still had a contemporary audience and some momentum to follow through on. And certainly, much of that contemporary audience consisted of their gay fanbase, which was also the core disco audience.

[Ollie9]

I actually wasn't referring to your comment about IABSB Ollie9, I was referring to a comment jobeterob threw out over HMM. Sorry for not being more specific.

I can't say exactly why it was not a bigger hit. There could be any number of reasons why a song doesn't reach the top, and I've never really used charts as a barometer of quality or to guide my listening. They're mostly snapshots in time to me.

That being said though, I think the fact that it gave them a nice little disco hit has to have counted for something. At that point in disco, so much of it existed outside of the purview of record label promotion still mostly still geared towards radio play, or even personal appearances - there was, in a sense, something pure and immediate about that.

To speculate a little bit - while there were already surprise disco hits, like Love's Theme by Love Unlimited Orchestra.. which became bestsellers because of disco and not radio, the industry at large had only just begun to harness the potential of the discos and the disco audience. There wasn't even a single disco chart yet in Billboard, and the first commercially available 12" single came out at least a year after Supremes '75 was released. So, while it didn't carry much momentum outside of the discos, HMM was enough to signal to the group and to the company that The Supremes still had a contemporary audience and some momentum to follow though on. And certainly, much of that contemporary audience consisted of their gay fanbase, which was also the core disco audience.

I do agree with your points on the relevance of the song being a disco hit and a signpost as to where the group might best be placed.
I do think the beyond twee choreography let the song down badly, with less sometimes being more. Sadly it was a pattern to be repeated again and again.

[RanRan79]

To speculate a little bit - while there were already surprise disco hits, like Love's Theme by Love Unlimited Orchestra.. which became bestsellers because of disco and not radio

I don't understand. Are you saying radio wasn't playing "Love's Theme"?

[telekin]

I don't understand. Are you saying radio wasn't playing "Love's Theme"?

Apparently not at first. Obviously that would've changed once it became too big to ignore. As the story goes, and I've heard a few variations on it, it was either initially dead at radio, or not even released as a single. Given that, the label was apparently at a loss as to explain the sales and interest. Once they realized it was largely being generated by disco play, they started to actively promote it there. Apparently it was the first track to cross over from the discos into into the pop charts.

Some links for background:
Pages 3 & 4 in Alice Echols' book Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

A 1975 article from The Advocate, the same issue with a feature story on The Supremes incidentally, profiling a west coast DJ - A.J. Miller, one of the first disco DJs to get a gold record for his role in breaking "Love's Theme."