Diana picks Personal Favorites on Spotify

Recently Diana posted something on social media and she included the hashtag #dianarossspotify. It had me curious. I usually just play my self made playlist. I know there are "official" artist channels but didnt think too much about them, as I thought they were made by record labels. The other day instead of playing my own playlist, I decided to head over to the Diana Ross channel. I noticed there was something called Diana Ross Personal Favorites. Again, I didnt think much about it because I just assumed it was generated by streaming numbers or a record label, or her managment team. I decided to google Spotify artist personal favorites and it really is a thing. But surely Diana didnt select these songs herself, I thought. But as I looked at the list of songs, call me naive, But they really seem to be picked by her. Some surprises. The usual big hits are not included. There are a couple of RCA tunes, and even a couple of songs from the Working Overtime album. Here is the list:

I'm still waiting
Home
So Close
Lets do it
Its hard for me to say
Tell me again
If we hold on together
This house
When you tell me that you love me
Force behind the power
One shining moment
Your love is so good for me
The best years of my life
Voice of the heart
He lives in you
Love is all that matters
Every day is a new day
More today than yesterday
I love you [[that's all that really matters)
A Brand New Day
Hope is an open window
All for one
Only love can conquer all
His eye is on the sparrow
Too shy to say
Paradise
I want you
Have fun [[again)
Summertime
For once in my life [[with the Supremes)

"Let's do it"? maybe "You do it"?

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Originally Posted by mindful1

"Let's do it"? maybe "You do it"?

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It’s Let’s do it. It’s a song from the Blue CD.

Interesting list if these are her personal favorites.

Force Behind the Power: 5 tracks [[including If We Hold On Together)
Every Day Is a New Day: 4 tracks [[!)
Red Hot Rhythm & Blues: 3 tracks [[!)
Workin' Overtime: 2 tracks
Take Me Higher: 2 tracks
Blue: 2 tracks
I Love You: 2 tracks
Wiz: 2 tracks

Everything Is Everything, Baby, Its' s Me, The Boss, diana, Silk Electric: 1 track

As khansperac said, no big hits and no Supremes hits.

Yep, I can see it. Mostly songs of love, exuberance, optimism and inspiration. These could really be her favorites.

If it was truly her favourite list, where is 'I will survive'? lol

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Originally Posted by Guy

Yep, I can see it. Mostly songs of love, exuberance, optimism and inspiration. These could really be her favorites.

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My thoughts exactly. Many of us have time to kill at the mo and the chosen songs do sound a real possible. Delighted to see a couple of songs from the WO set chosen as her favourites. Very surprised not to see ANMHE.

i can see her liking these. as someone else mentioned, many of the songs have a more inspirational tone or theme. frankly a little of that goes a long way for me but i'm a cynic lolol I do believe that these "uplifting" songs tend to be more of a challenge to make a hit with. certainly not impossible but they can often drift too much into Adult Contemp or Christian Pop for Top 40 radio

and while there are a few big and well know hits, lots of more obscure songs and album tracks. It does seem a bit lopsided to 80s/90s.

My guess is one of her kids or an assistant pulled this together ;)

Maybe she is also somewhat tired of singing some of those very well known songs and so they don’t make the favourite list

a bit of disco, kind of has me boppin' about this morning !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5gNuBwuun0

her only synthed Motown song.

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Originally Posted by Boogiedown

a bit of disco, kind of has me boppin' about this morning !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5gNuBwuun0

her only synthed Motown song.

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Well how strange is that. After reading the list the other day this is the first thing i played. I had forgotten just how good this 12” version really is. I’m quite pleased it hasn’t been kuppered lol.

.......:cool::cool:.......

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Originally Posted by jobeterob

Maybe she is also somewhat tired of singing some of those very well known songs and so they don’t make the favourite list

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this is VERY speculative but i remember quite a bit of talk on here about why the Sups seemed to skip some songs. Like WDOLG. Give that it was the song that set everything in motion and was a HUGE seller, it's odd that it seems to have quickly fallen out of their live material.

some speculated that even though they APPRECIATED it doing what it did, maybe they still didn't love it

or maybe they liked it but was just too similar, sound-wise, to Baby Love and Come See

or maybe it just frankly wasn't as fun or exciting to sing. from a melody perspective, from how they would interact with the audience during, etc. the whole performance thing. So as they stage show as updating year to year, i'm sure the girls had at least some say in the material and when picking which of their hits, they just had some they liked better

Same with Diana solo. Last Time I Saw Him is so fun on the record IMO but live, unless you have a full Dixieland Band behind you, it might lose something. Same with a song like Pieces of Ice or Lovin, Livin Givin. even if she really enjoyed recording them, you could never replicate the recording well.

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Originally Posted by sup_fan

Last Time I Saw Him is so fun on the record IMO but live, unless you have a full Dixieland Band behind you, it might lose something. Same with a song like Pieces of Ice or Lovin, Livin Givin. even if she really enjoyed recording them, you could never replicate the recording well.

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I agree with what you are saying, except for “Last time I saw him”. Diana has an exceptional band, they could play anything. I really wish Diana would add this song to her concert set list. It is one of her bigger hits she never performs. I only saw her sing it once on the Muppet show and she did great. But back to your point. One of my favorite songs from the Take me Higher album is the song “Gone”. Lovely song. I’ve seen her sing it twice on video, and both times it fell flat. I’m convinced it is one of those good records that can’t be duplicated live.

^agreed she has wonderful band which typically includes SOME orchestra but Last Time has some pretty unique instrumental requirements. Banjo, clarinet. Now i agree it's not impossible to find quality players for those instruments but if you're bringing them into your act for just 1 song, that's pricey. normally you'd want to avoid too many extraneous players. perhaps the clarinet could do some of her big symphonic songs like Mahogany or It's My Turn. but not sure

but i agree - it's a great song. and i really love the extended version on EE and her last Motown Anthology. the missing part of the 2nd verse is nice enough but it's the ending! that long vamp with the musicians just going to town and diana really singing her heart out. It's as if you're on Bourbon Street and she's right there with a full band.

I think the single mix was fine but needed more of this ending. if they could have let the song gone a bit longer so the single had more of the live band feeling, i think that would have given it a bit more oomph and have charted higher. That and ditch the boring Gaye duets which were released on top of LTISH and hindered the chart progress

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Originally Posted by khansperac

I agree with what you are saying, except for “Last time I saw him”. Diana has an exceptional band, they could play anything. I really wish Diana would add this song to her concert set list. It is one of her bigger hits she never performs. I only saw her sing it once on the Muppet show and she did great. But back to your point. One of my favorite songs from the Take me Higher album is the song “Gone”. Lovely song. I’ve seen her sing it twice on video, and both times it fell flat. I’m convinced it is one of those good records that can’t be duplicated live.

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We went to her concert at Boston Harbor just as she was promoting the album, we heard her rehearsing "Gone", it was really smooth and I thought perfect! but she didn't perform it in the concert!

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Originally Posted by sup_fan

^agreed she has wonderful band which typically includes SOME orchestra but Last Time has some pretty unique instrumental requirements. Banjo, clarinet. Now i agree it's not impossible to find quality players for those instruments but if you're bringing them into your act for just 1 song, that's pricey. normally you'd want to avoid too many extraneous players.

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I'm sure if she really wanted to do that or any song that required extra musicians, she could have a great arrangement made that didn't need those instruments or have the additional instruments programmed into the keyboards as her string arrangements sometimes are.

Or she could even have a separate track made with said instruments and sync it up with the live musicians, just as long as she had a great sound person. I caught the opening night of her I LOVE YOU tour at Foxwoods Casino and it was a bare-boned show with a few musicians and two backup singers. There was also additional instrumentation and backup vocals on tape as well and during WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE, the tape started early and was off for the whole first part of the song. I gather the sound person got an earful after that show!

I love that she chose some of my own favorites:
I'm Still Waiting
It's Hard For Me To Say
Every Day Is a New Day
One Shining Moment
Summertime

I'm glad she chose several songs from RHRB and EDIAND. I love to listen to RHRB especially on beautiful summer days at the beach, although I don't know how much I will be at the beach this summer. EDIAND seems so personal, heartfelt and soul-baring, that I have to listen to it when I'm in a very positive mood. :)


I'm also glad she chose songs I like from albums I don't listen to much:
I'm Still Waiting
Paradise
This House
I Love You [[That's All That Really Matters)

Maybe with the time off she will add new songs to her setlist

and maybe she'll do a few playlists on spotify. change it up and keep it fresh