DRATS: Some Things You Never Get Used To

[longtimefan]

Over the years, I have read numerous times that an album titled SOME THINGS YOU NEVER GET USED TO was once in production in the late 60s, but was not completed or released. Also, I never see it listed as one of the "official" unreleased albums by The Supremes.

Who knows more about this proposed album? Where can I read more?

[Roger Polhill]

MS. 670.
Some Things You Never Get Used To.
Heaven Must Have Sent You.
He`s My Sunny Boy.
Come On And See Me.
Can I Get A Witness.
You`ve Been So Wonderful To Me.
My Guy.
It`s Not Unusual.
Just A Little Misunderstanding.
Uptight [[Everything`s Alright)
What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted.
Blowing In The Wind.
I prefer it to "Love Child"

[marybrewster]

MS. 670.
Some Things You Never Get Used To.
Heaven Must Have Sent You.
He`s My Sunny Boy.
Come On And See Me.
Can I Get A Witness.
You`ve Been So Wonderful To Me.
My Guy.
It`s Not Unusual.
Just A Little Misunderstanding.
Uptight [[Everything`s Alright)
What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted.
Blowing In The Wind.
I prefer it to "Love Child"

Clearly a hodge-podge; would be interesting to know what the next single would have been. "Come On and See Me" perhaps?

[longtimefan]

Interesting track listing. Thanks! So why wasn't it released? Was any art worked ever leaked?

[ejluther]

If there wasn't any planned artwork, maybe some of the creative folks here can whip some up like they have in the past?

[captainjames]

Truly a wise move on Motown not to release. I do not see a hit on here anywhere. Perhaps this is when Mr. Gordy said we need a damn hit on this group.

[reese]

Interesting track listing. Thanks! So why wasn't it released? Was any art worked ever leaked?

It wasn't released because SOME THINGS wasn't as successful as they had hoped for.

In the end, its is probably wise that it wasn't released. Individually, I think most of these songs are fine, but they don't hold together well as an album. Besides SOME THINGS, I don't see anything else that would have made a good follow-up. IMO, the eventual LOVE CHILD album was much stronger.

[supremester]

This album would have been a hot mess. Reflections came out in March, and was kind of a mess - this would have been yeeeech. I do like several of the tracks, but as a unit, nah. I guess they were thinking Heaven Must Have Sent You as a follow up, but, its not exactly ready to go out as it stands. Maybe they could have gussied it up a bit, however. I think they were wise to dump this project and wait until they at least had one killer song for an album. I think The Love Child album is weak, very disappointing sales wise for such a huge title song. This tells us word of mouth was not good on it. Two weak albums in a row and another stinker, the worst, was to follow next. The Temptations become Motown's #1 Album sellers because of these.

[daviddh]

I think the love child lp was one of their best

[RossHolloway]

I think the Love Child lp would have been an even bigger seller if the TCB and Join duet album hadn't been released so close together. I would imagine all these albums released so closely together also impacted the sales total on their 45's during late 68- early/mid '69.

[ejluther]

I, too, am a big fan of the LOVE CHILD LP; overall the strongest post-Flo LP, IMO...

[thommg]

This album would have been a hot mess. Reflections came out in March, and was kind of a mess - this would have been yeeeech.

I disagree! Reflections is one of my favorite Supremes albums. To me, it is their most adult LP and probably the easiest vocals they ever recorded. Bah Bah Bah is a song that actually has no chorus except for the bah's. And the cover songs on side two are some of their best work. I didn'[t really need to hear Diana sing Ode To Billy Joe but she does a great job on it.

[kenneth]

I, too, am a big fan of the LOVE CHILD LP; overall the strongest post-Flo LP, IMO...

I totally agree. It's a great album. "How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone" is one of Diane's strongest performances, in my opinion. I think "Reflections" runs a close second in the best of the later LPs. Now "Let the Sunshine In" and "Cream of the Crop" to me were definitely hodge podges. I've been meaning to listen to them again but I don't think I ever played either more than a few times.

Although it's not a Supremes solo project, "Join the Temptations" is also a great effort, right up there with "Love Child," maybe even better. That album was magical. The arrangements were psueodo-Broadway but flawless [[Gil Askey I'm assuming). I knew enough to love that album when it came out just as much as I still do!

[BigAl]

More than any other Hitsville acts, the Supremes and the Four Tops suffered most acutely as a result of the departure of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Neither group could snag a hit before being paired with HDH and both groups floundered regrettably in their absence. The Supremes, especially, suffered because they were slammed with a triple-whammy: HDH flew the coop, Florence was fired, Diane was pushed farther out front and given star billing. None of these changes were well received by the fans, many of whom jumped ship. The Four Tops, being a more cohesive group, fared a little better, but it took locking down five writer-producers to create "Love Child" just to give DRATS another substantial hit, which was then followed by three more bombs before "Someday" gave them a final hit — and that wasn't even originally recorded as a DRATS single. I believe it must have been painfully evident that the track list for a "Some Things" album was just a patchwork of unrelated mediocre songs pulled from the stockpiles, and it's fortunate that it was eighty-sixed.

[ejluther]

So why didn't they ever perform the "Some Things..." single live on TV? It just makes no sense to me and think it was one of the reasons the song didn't do better on the charts. Did they ever even sing it live? I don't know what the consensus here is but I think it's a great song and deserved way better...

[kenneth]

So why didn't they ever perform the "Some Things..." single live on TV? It just makes no sense to me and think it was one of the reasons the song didn't do better on the charts. Did they ever even sing it live? I don't know what the consensus here is but I think it's a great song and deserved way better...

I do like the song a lot. It has an odd structure and a different kind of lyric which I think is unusual. I remember never having heard it, or heard of it, until finding it in a cut-out bin at a K-Mart or something and friends and I were both surprised how good it sounded. I suppose it was just a different sound, but obviously didn't receive any promotion if they never even sang it live.

[ejluther]

It is very odd - it's like they lost faith in it right after they made it but then released it anyway - same thing for "The Composer" [[another single that probably would have done better coupled with a TV performance)...

[daviddh]

I also like the REFLECTIONS album. think the HAPPENING should have been included,perhaps in place of UP UP AND AWAY.
I d agree that Love Child may have done better, but it reportedly sold 600,000 copies over the year .....that's good to me.
a gold lp has to sell 500,000

[kenneth]

I also like the REFLECTIONS album. think the HAPPENING should have been included,perhaps in place of UP UP AND AWAY.
I d agree that Love Child may have done better, but it reportedly sold 600,000 copies over the year .....that's good to me.
a gold lp has to sell 500,000

That was still very good for what would have been largely considered a "singles act" at the time, wasn't it?

[BigAl]

So why didn't they ever perform the "Some Things..." single live on TV? It just makes no sense to me and think it was one of the reasons the song didn't do better on the charts. Did they ever even sing it live? I don't know what the consensus here is but I think it's a great song and deserved way better...

Why they didn't perform it on TV is anyone's guess. They did include it in their act when I saw them in August of 1968, while the song was charting tepidly, but it didn't sound very good and they seemed to be struggling with it, as did the band. It was an ambitious studio song and Ashford & Simpson gave it their best shot, but it lacked catchy hooks and was not a number which lent itself well to live performance. I imagine once it dropped off the charts they probably dropped it from the act as well.

[johnjeb]

The proposed Some Things album looks dreadful, although I suppose as the ultimate Supremes fan at that time I would have loved it or pretended to love it. Looks like they were going for another A Go-Go with mostly Pop and Motown covers.

I love the A Go-Go covers but I don't like many of the performances on the proposed Some Things album.

Reflections is a good Pop album with good performances by Diana more satisfying than LTSI album released a year later.

Love Child was refreshing for a Supremes' release, no Pop covers and a little more soulful. Can't say the same for the dreadful Cream of the Crap.

[daviddh]

I liked the lush cream of the crop, but hated Let the sunshine In. I think there were two songs on LTSI that I did like