Diana Ross pop chart performance in the 70s

[smark21]

I know Diana Ross had six #1 hits between 1970 and 1981. But she didn’t have that many other top ten hits during that time span, at least in the US. Motown certainly promoted her for the most part, right? Does anyone have any theories as to why she didn’t have more top ten pop hits in the US?

[George Solomon]

On the Billboard charts she either went all the way to #1 in the 70's or missed the top ten. Odd that in Cashbox and Record World, she also made the POP top ten with "Reach Out & Touch", "Remember Me" and "Last Time I Saw Him".

[davidh]

hmmm, well, i am still wondering why some of the songs were not bigger hits.I'm Still Waiting was #1 for 4 weeks in 1970 in UK but held back a year in the US even though the album was released in the fall of 70. REMEMBER ME was a great tune and made top #7 UK but only #16 US??great song though.
was Diana touring during this time frame or making movie/having babies?????
also ,Diana was not as visable in the 70s as she was in teh 60s with the supremes. seems like the supremes were always on tv every month performing their new singles. never saw diana do this in the 70s.
TODAY I FELL IN LOVE ,GETTIN READY FOR LOVE,ONE LOVE IN MY LIFETIME should have done better.but never saw diana do any PR on these and when i did see her on tonight show she sang AINT NO BODYS BUSINESS IF I DO and not her new single??strange to me. as a teen then,i didnt want to hear those songs,i wanted LOVE HANGOVER.
i just dont think diana was that visible in the 70s.she seemed to be more so in the later 70s or maybe that how i remember it

[davidh]

hey George,hello from USA. didnt cashbox and record world only go buy sales ,whereas Billboard went by radio plays/requests...juke box plays, and other info,not just sales.??i even noticed on FOREVER CAME TODAY,pop #28 but cashbox #13???

[supremester]

I think there are several reasons. While I'm sure Motown worked those early singles - you can't buy sales and airplay is "iffy" in that department. When artists whine about label support to explain their failed singles, it always makes me laugh. If all that was required to get a hit was promotion, the Hot 100 would be The Hot 10,000. who WOULDN'T promote ANY single. Come on, get a grip. I think Reach Out and Touch could have hit big if it was plugged on TV. I'm Still Waiting as well. Certainly exposure had a lot to do with it. Diana did almost no TV before Lady Sings the Blues - none at all to support her singles. Her TV special was designed to help Remember Me, but production delays ruined that chance. I loved that record to death, but, like Reach Out and Touch, it was a formatting nightmare. I wish they would have junked Remember Me on Diana! and added Reach Out I'll Be There - it was her current single after all and with that edit - needed all the help it could get. Additionally, Diana was playing clubs in 1970 & '71 and those patrons rarely bought 45's. She quit performing in spring '71 for over 2 years to have babies and make Lady.

Also, I think the choices for singles were often wretched [[ Sleepin? Special Part Of Me? Don't Knock My Love? Sorry? One Love In My Lifetime?????? Gettin Ready? What You Gave Me? It's My House? Crying My Heart Out?? ) Whoever was making these choices should have been put to work for a competitor. I love some of those - especially Sorry, but no way was that gonna get on the radio without lots of TV, but I would have chanced it better than One Love In My Lifetime. It followed two #1's and still tanked. It wasn't single material. Sorry, had it gotten played, might have hit with a lot of work. How often does an act have two #1's in a row? Why waste that momentum on......THAT??? Her records that did hit, hit big because they were stellar records that could smash through without any TV. It was Gordy's decision to do it this way. He knew she was bigger than hit 45's, but had it been me, I'd have had her plugging Reach Out and Touch on TV to get it across. After Ain't, it didn't matter so much.

[davidh]

i liked ONE LOVE IN MY LIFETIME, it had a rock -soul feel to me but though it may have done a bit better if it had a dance mix.it's still one of my favs. i do agree with supremesster in that i would have never released songs like SLEEPIN,etc. yes some bad choices in my opinion

[davidh]

i also thought it was strange that songs like LOVIN LIVIN GIVIN,NO ONE GETS THE PRIZE were gettin airplay here but neither got single release status.

[stephanie]

Ross was lucky if you ask me. When I heard Last Time I Saw Him on the Radio I had no idea it would chart as it did!! I think the reasons her records did so well was because of her loyal fan base. I know when Surrender came out and Everything is Everything I got it and others did too and this was no fanfare or airplay. I think I heard Im Still Waiting three or four times on the radio. Truth be told I heard RedHot by Mary Wilson more hear in DC than I did Im Still Waiting.

Im Gettin Ready for Love got a lot of airplay here on the easy listening stations and I never heard Sleepin which I thought was a horrible choice for single. Supremester did a great analysis but I think Motown did the right thing by releasing Im Gettin Ready for Love that was a throwback tune like Chain Reaction. The ONE Ross mystery I have yet to solve is why Chain Reaction was not a big hit here, when Ross did it on the AMA's I knew it was going to fly and it didnt but overseas it was huge!!! If I were Quality Control at Motown I would have scrapped Sleepin and released I Heard a Love Song but you Never made a Sound. I like Stone Liberty but it doesnt have a hook. I know im in the minority on this but I never understood how the Boss got so big!! Good album but I never thought it was mastered right and it didnt sound like a hit record to me I think it sold because we saw more of her and the album was in ALL of the record stores in the window with her bearing her chest it got a lot of exposure. It was a different Diana. I never saw what the hit potential was with the Boss it didnt resonate with me until I saw her sing it live. The Chic thing hit me though.

[smark21]

I think Chain Reaction flopped in the US because: 1) Ross had aged out of the US pop radio marketplace by 1986, and 2) the Bee Gees were on background vocals and their sound was dated and so associated with cheesy disco at the time. This is just anecdotal, but in 1987 I took a film course in college and Saturday Night Fever was one of the films on the syllabus we had to watch in class. Nearly everyone laughed at the songs and the dancing in the movie.

[marv2]

I think Chain Reaction flopped in the US because: 1) Ross had aged out of the US pop radio marketplace by 1986, and 2) the Bee Gees were on background vocals and their sound was dated and so associated with cheesy disco at the time. This is just anecdotal, but in 1987 I took a film course in college and Saturday Night Fever was one of the films on the syllabus we had to watch in class. Nearly everyone laughed at the songs and the dancing in the movie.

It did not sell because it was a stupid song. The lyrics did not make sense and the overall sound was just old fashion sounding.

[JohnnyB]

i also thought it was strange that songs like LOVIN LIVIN GIVIN,NO ONE GETS THE PRIZE were gettin airplay here but neither got single release status.
When I played The Boss LP for the first time I KNEW No One Gets The Prize would be the hit! I was so shocked it was never released as a single. Definitely a missed opportunity.

[BayouMotownMan]

Diana Ross's solo recording career was always spotty. She'd have a good year, followed by 2 bad years, then a good year followed by 3 bad years. Gordy has said the company lost money on her recording career. I don't know that Motown lost money but in relation to the Commodores or Stevie she definitely had limited success. In the 1970s she got caught into a position where she was trying to go MOR then disco. Some songs like Last Time I Saw Him and Gettin' Ready For Love charted well but sold poorly.

[I ♥ The Supremes and Temptations]

Uh.... well I blame Gordy for that he was too busy trying to make her a movie star instead of focusing on her singing career....
Diana Ross's solo recording career was always spotty. She'd have a good year, followed by 2 bad years, then a good year followed by 3 bad years. Gordy has said the company lost money on her recording career. I don't know that Motown lost money but in relation to the Commodores or Stevie she definitely had limited success. In the 1970s she got caught into a position where she was trying to go MOR then disco. Some songs like Last Time I Saw Him and Gettin' Ready For Love charted well but sold poorly.

[davidh]

i agree with all of above, Diana was spotty and we hardly ever saw her on tv. between babies and movies she was no where to be found. when she did tour her albums sold well.
in the 80's diana suffered from two books,DREAMGIRL,CALL HER MISS ROSS then she took off for almost 2 years to have more babies. in radio,out of sight,out of mind and she was. i dont think her career ever recovered.
when ELVIS went in to the army, RCA had him record material so they had tracks to release while he was gone. i'm surprised Diana didnt do the same.
i liked chain Reaction and thought it was good but it was too late, had it been released 2 years earlier it would have become a hit.

[stephanie]

I still say Surrender should have been a much bigger hit! That whole album to me was much better than he first album where she looks like a waif. I know it sold on the strength of Aint no Mountain High Enough but Surrender was a much more cohesive sounding album.

[franjoy56]

I definetly agree with the "Surrender" album that album brought out the soul of Diana Ross regardless of the background singers, track after track spoke to her singing talent.
Track in question "Didn't YOu Know you had to Cry Sometime" and "If I Didn't Hurt So Bad" and the "Surrender" track should have been a bigger hit than #38.

After Mahogany Berry and Ross had a fallout after she refused to finish the picutre, this may have been when Motown no longer made her records a priority, I said may have been just a theory.

[rovereab]

In the UK, Chain Reaction hit the nail on the head! It was a massive hit [[hitting the chart twice I believe), the video was great fun to watch and the song is still popular.

It may have looked back to the Motown sound of the 60s but IMO was all the better for it.

[Ollie9]

Sleepin was released because Diana apparently absolutely loved the song and insisted on it. Like Reach Out And Touch it had not been scheduled for single release. I think it is one of the better songs from Last Time I Saw Him but there were better songs in the can from these sessions than the ones that were released. Always thought These Things Will Keep Me loving You from the first solo would have hit big with decent airplay. TV appearances make a huge difference to sales. When Diana was in the UK to promote Force Behind The Power she scored 5 hits in a row. I don't think it helped having so many Lps released so close together. Everything Is Everything was just sandwiched.

[marv2]

In the UK, Chain Reaction hit the nail on the head! It was a massive hit [[hitting the chart twice I believe), the video was great fun to watch and the song is still popular.

It may have looked back to the Motown sound of the 60s but IMO was all the better for it.

It didn't get played on radio in the United States ,but I did see the video and lyrics were stupid and the sound outdated.

[soulster]

I know Diana Ross had six #1 hits between 1970 and 1981. But she didn’t have that many other top ten hits during that time span, at least in the US. Motown certainly promoted her for the most part, right? Does anyone have any theories as to why she didn’t have more top ten pop hits in the US?

One may well ask why Commodores didn't do better with some of their singles!

I can't be bothered to actually look up all those songs and see what she was in competition with, but it seems that she had big hits when there was a flurry of high chart activity. That alone would explain it. As for the other songs? Well obviously the public just didn't like them enough, and no heavy push by a record company or radio can improve the odds.

Then, there is the possibility that the lesser songs just weren't that good Diana Ross did not walk on water.

And, remember, towards the end of the 70s, tastes and styles were changing.

[stephanie]

What killed Sleepin was that crazy yelling of In the Street you Know!!!....LOL Heck I thought the cover of Everything is Everything would sell it. I like that album more than I do her first one that had Aint no Mountain on it.