Tossing out random thoughts: Gladys Knight & The Pips: "Everybody Needs Love"
I was playing this today and recalled how much I LOVED this song when I heard it at 13. Precisely, the thing I loved was the sparseness of it all. The song didn't overwhelm you with "theatrics." It was basically a guitar, a bass, drums and those very cool finger snaps. Oh and strings. It was one of the few songs I thought I could actually play on my dad's guitar. On the verses and choruses, it's incredible how little musically is going on, allowing plenty, PLENTY of room for the voices to carry the record. I also, was thinking of how, in another thread here, the issue came up about the Andantes being used with the Pips on "Just Walk In My Shoes." I forgot the Andantes are also on "Everybody Needs Love." It's very, VERY subtle- in the video below, if you go to this spot: 1:16 and 2:28, you'll hear the Andantes singing, what sounds like, "Love, love, you need sweet love", starting just a millisecond before the Pips finish their "doo-doo-doo-doo" riff. The words may not be exact, but the point is there are two sets of vocals on this record. It's a fascinating bit of mixing because if you didn't think about it, you'd just assume the Pips singing all in falsetto. Even though their contributions seem to be fairly minimal here, for whatever reason, [[maybe Quality Control) it was decided to blend in the Andantes' voices.
https://youtu.be/JV0SRI_MPB4