I can't wait for the expanded edition ...if we ever get it......George and Andy....
Wasn't there a hdh single around 1980.....we can never light the flame.....???
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Never say and you were the one were the best two tracks
You were the One was a diamond among some other jewels. I would be curious of other songs with the Jones Girls in the background.
I agree.I recall Barbra Streisand telling me last year how she had to fight like hell to get her Broadway album released back in the 80's. She was advised not to record the album because that type of music was not in vogue. She said the situation became so heated that she threatened to quit Columbia and move over to Arista where Clive Davis was waiting to pounce and give her a lifetime deal. He was fully behind the proposed project unlike the executives at Columbia who wanted a reunion with Barry Gibb. They eventually relented and of course it became one of her biggest sellers and started a whole new trend for revisiting classics from yesteryear. My point here is that following current trends is not always the right thing to do. Baby it's me was a work of art that could have bucked current trends had it been promoted properly and had Diana made a few high profile tv appearances to promote it. Sadly it soured the relationship between Diana and Gordy which took an even bigger turn for the worse over the illfated Ross78 fiasco.
i was wondering if BIM was sort of the genesis for problems between D and Motown. 1976 was a very strong year for her with LH, Diana Ross 1976 and her US Greatest Hits package. plus she ended 75 with the wonderful theme from Mahogany
but we also know what a nightmare the making of the movie mahogany was and how it really started to tear apart D and B's relationship
Had they not fumbled BIM and actually made an effort with Ross 78, perhaps she would have stayed with motown and perhaps had a VERY different course in the 80s
i don't know that you can exactly compare the Broadway album release with BIM.
Broadway was Barbra's early home. this was a genre she had long excelled in and the public also closely associated her with. So to have her release something like that as a tribute concept is very much in her wheelhouse. obviously the execs were dumb and should have also realized this.
BIM wasn't a concept or tribute album. it was intended as a pop album and therefore should have been more inline with trends vs a concept album or a tribute package. all in all i think BIM is a stunning collection but just released too late. by the time it was on the market, the genre it was attempting to play in had already advanced considerably and so the music, while very well crafted, wasn't in touch with what the public was then wanting. IMO it was a year too late.
in hindsight we can see the album for the classic it is. similar to The Boss. i'm sure many fans and pop music stuffed The Boss away during the early and mid 80s as it was "DISCO" which was taboo of sorts. but now we can listen to it and appreciate it for what it was and still is.
also didn't Diana record a tribute album while at RCA? was it Harold Allen? can't remember which classic american composer it was.
and she attempted to do a tribute with RHR&B.
Interesting. I enjoyed the broadway album, but in 85 would really have LOVED a follow up to Guilty when her voice was still at its best. I'm quite sure sales would have easily matched TBA. Whatever the decision, Bab's was on to a winner either way.
Perhaps Diana's tribute to Harold Arlen could have been her own broadway album. I guess we will never know.
i think Diana's work with American jazz legends is as equally as wonderful as Bab's broadway work. but it's too bad she's been so narrow in her focus only on Billie Holiday. yes in many of her shows she's added other classics. but it would have been great to hear her in the studio working on additional singers. Or like when she did Stolen Moments
This is a tough industry, and it seems to me that Diana knows the rules and she is not a rebel. I'm not sure that in the eighties she was in Streisand position, since she was very much on the pop market and no longer an actress.
By the way, Barbra tried to record a broadway record as far back as 1975. Colombia was lukewarm at best, and to me it's even more a surprise since in 75, she wasn't a pop recording artist. After she became an international record seller, not just an American standards singer. Maybe it's because of that, they rejected her demand. They knew that an album of Broadway material would limit her sales to the US.
They refused her a double LP and even a double gatefold cover. Yet Linda Rondstadt had a lot of success with her own standards album with Nelson Riddle.
interesting to hypothesize if she'd stayed with motown - would she have had more creative outlets? berry certainly understood this concept and might have been a more willing executive to support it.
frankly i think the idea of her paying tribute to other female jazz and blues legends it more of a fit than her general R&B concept. she never really "fit" in that category as well, IMO
Just a thought.
Look how long it took to get Blue out.satbin the vaults for thirty years. Yet she had no album release in 1975
'Tis true Linda enjoyed massive success with those albums. It's impossible to evaluate the reasoning behind Diana's Arlen project being shelved when no one as yet has heard it. Would it have been as readily accepted as those of Ronstadt and Streisand during that time frame?...I'm not so sure.
It's interesting to note that B.S broadrway albums were generally stronger than her mid 80's pop efforts.. ie Emotion and Till I Loved You.
Barbra and Broadway go hand in hand. She was entirely in her comfort zone doing Broadway. Much more so than on more pop orientated material. Having said that i thoroughly enjoyed listening to Emotion again last year. It has aged quite well.i must give Till i Loved You another spin. Not heard it in years.
To me, Emotion is like a lot of Diana’s RCA output. Miscalculated :[[
Some songs are really not suited to her voice and she sounds strained more than once.
I have my favorites, When I Dream a jazzy song that would have been perfection for Swept away and Emotion, produced by Steve Perry.
Albator, thanks for The Jones Girls story. I've never heard that before.
Otherwise, I was completely dumbfounded by a 50+ post discussion about the viability of "You Were The One." A pleasant enough song that no one who isn't completely enamored of Ross would ever think had hit potential.
I agree that "you were the one" had no hit potential but it's a wonderful song and Diana's performance is fantastic. Especially because of this great production and stunning background voices.
i don't know that i would say "no hit potential" but i don't think it was a lost #1. If released as a single, i think it would have definitely gone top 40 and probably top 20.
I'm not crazy on Emotion, finding the production a little tinny. Best songs for me are definitely those produced by Maurice White. Never really understood why no one picked up on the single potential of "Time Machine" or "When I Dream". Perhaps even "Heart Don't Change My Mind. Really bad single choices were made for the album with Diana nowhere in sight lol.
I think you might be judging Baby It's Me from a rear view mirror. It's easy to think the album was passable and not what the public wanted because it ultimately didn't perform to the standard set by the quality of the album. Had Motown issued a single from the album, put Diana on TV to perform it, put all promo efforts behind it, she may have gotten a hit. From there the album comes out, she's on tour, she's doing tv, the second single drops. Now the album is really taking off. Disco is doing it's thing, but so is Baby It's Me.
The critics loved the album at the time. And certain markets were playing certain tracks like crazy, which means in the areas the songs were being heard, the public liked what they were hearing. The problem was that, because there was no official single yet, the markets were playing different tracks at the same time. And then Motown was screwing up the singles release schedule.
If you check out what was happening on the Hot 100 [[singles) during 1977 you'll see that the number one songs from that year were a hodge podge of sounds. You certainly had disco and disco adjacent cuts like "You Don't Have To Be A Star" and "Don't Leave Me This Way". But also uptempo funky cuts like "Got To Give It Up" and "Sir Duke". And then there's stuff like "Rich Girl", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "You Light Up My Life", "How Deep Is Your Love". The same would be true for the following year.
So I don't think Baby It's Me was what was wrong and something more disco-y was necessary in it's place. Had Motown done what the hell it was supposed to do, the discussion regarding Baby It's Me could've ended up very different. But I think it's important to look at the album and it's place in music at the time, rather than with hindsight. Disco was king, but it was in danger of being knocked off the thrown every week by a non disco cut. Not chasing that particular trend could have paid off nicely.
Insightful post and one i agree with 1000%. As you point out, critics were unanimous in their praise for the album. It really was coordinated promotion that was sorely lacking. I think it's less about the time frame and more a case of could have, would have and definitely should have.
oh i completely agree that if BIM had been properly promoted it would have had much more success.
Maybe the problem with BIM is that it was sort of caught in the aftermath of Love Hangover. That song was so huge, so special, so unique. It was disco but it was absolutely DIANA'S version of disco. it's not even my fav song but i can still recognize it's importance and impact.
So basically motown did NOTHING to follow up on that. IMO it's like as if the Sups had hit big with WDOLG and then motown goes into the vault and releases something like That's A Funny Way or Let Me Hear You Say [[I Love You). I feel that motown had an opportunity to advance her in the area of disco and dance and didn't. Motown also really missed the whole disco scene and market and had long since lost it's role of leading really groundbreaking music. seems more like they'd just stumble on something.
BIM didn't do much to advance or update or redefine the DR sound or image. Mountain and her debut album did. Lady did. Touch Me in the Morning did. LH did. The Boss and diana 80 did.
then other sets like Surrender, LTISH and some others, built on the preceding album and style.
I would definitely agree that in the wake of "Love Hangover"s massive success, it made more sense for Diana's followup album to be, as you say, Diana's version of disco. Perhaps had Thelma Houston not gotten hold to "Don't Leave Me This Way" before Diana could lay her vocals down on it, it might have been the next single after "One Love In My Lifetime" and then had a whole album built around it. That definitely makes the most sense. It would've been Motown following up on what Diana had already done, rather than having her chase the trend of the day.
Regarding Baby It's Me advancing her sound and image, I think had the album been allowed to take off, it would've done just that. IMO the album was the most sophisticated and grown up album Diana had recorded up to that point, Lady Sings not withstanding. Her first three solo albums were very "I'm a young 20 something falling in and out of love". Lady Sings was entirely someone else's stuff from another time that Ross was simply recreating, albeit putting her own stamp on it. Then TMITM rolls around, very sophisticated, but also very moody, very smooth, and somewhat of an extension from Lady Sings. It was not a typical pop/r&b album, and it definitely elevated Diana's sound. Then LTISH mostly returns her back to the spirit of her first three albums, so she's backtracking. Diana76 is sort of a healthy mix of everything Diana had done previously.
But Baby It's Me was an all woman album. Even the way she sings about being in love and happy, like "You Got It" or "Top Of the World" has a more adult spirit about it, even with her exuberant vocal approach. The passion of "Come In From the Rain", "Too Shy", "Confide In Me"...the seriousness of "The Same Love"...the sexiness of "All Night Lover"...Diana had never sounded so womanly, IMO. Ross78 is a misstep not worth mentioning, but The Boss, with her "I am woman hear me roar" themes, seems like an extension to Baby It's Me.
After Diana76, Ross77 should've been next, followed by Baby It's Me, and then The Boss.
We have a perfect album in every way. The production, Diana's performance, the elegance of the songs, but, to paraphrase Miss Ross "Where are the HITS, where are the hits".
It's possible that we overestimate BIM because we're fans.
I'm a fan of Diana myself, and yet it took me over 20 years to consider this, one of the most successful albums. There must be a reason for that, or an explanation.
Rather than comparing it to Guilty or Streisand's Broadway album, it reminds me more of Donna Summer produced by Quincy Jones in 1982. A perfect album with no hits.
That means that's not what people wanted to hear at that time.
I love Baby it's Me album. But an after thought..Diana Ross album was released in Feb 76 on the heels of a #1 song ... And then there more singles....Motown rushed out hits in late summer .... and imo should have waited to the Christmas shopping market for it.
At this point we get nothing until Sept 77.
Motown should have had something waiting in the wings....but we got nothing. This was not the old Motown when we were getting a new lp every 6 months or earlier. It took a year and half to get this album. No fan fair.no promo.
Just got it released. In the meantime linda ronstadt was hot .Diana was losing ground.
In the long run Motown screwed it up.
Classic album
i tend to agree with you. I think fan adore BIM because of the overall high quality and having a single producer take on the entire project gives it a cohesiveness missing from many of her other albums. While fans will certainly call out the garbage releases, we might be over appreciative of material that's better. while the general public just likes it, we adore it.
that's sort of the basis of my point. in fall of 77, this was a pleasant and nice enough package. But given the tastes of the public, this wasn't earth shattering or shocking.
The lead single is what killed the album. As much as I love GRFL it was not radio friendly. It was not going to be a big hit. I actually heard some young teenager kids at the music store saying they didn’t like it. When the album was released. There was huge promos for it in the big record stores. I remember it being featured prominently at Music Land. And it did reach, I believe #19 on the top 200 Billboard charts. The same position as her first solo album that included ANMHE. The lead single should have been “Top of the World” or “You Got It”. Even “All night lover” would have been a better choice. In fact. “You got It”. Hit #1 on one of my local radio stations for airplay and requests.
Overall, I think the arrangements are too busy for 1977/78/79. GRFL is a song you can appreciate when you'r a grown up and a fan.
I have no idea which song could have been a hit, but my favorites are : "The same love", "Baby it's me", "You got to", "top of the world", "room enough for two".
GRFL was the only song from this album that I ever heard on the radio. I remember liking it very much and waiting for my allowance so that I could buy the album. But I like the remixed version with the hand claps and prominent bass much more. It was released on her 1983 ANTHOLOGY.
When I finally bought the BABY IT'S ME album, I remember showing it to an older cousin and he asked "Is 'Your Love Is So Good For Me' on here?" I gather that song was gaining some airplay plus it was mentioned in a BLACK STARS magazine review of the album.
^it also hit #15 on the Dance Charts and 16 on R&B
Yes it did. But at the time my cousin mentioned it to me, it hadn't been released as a single yet so I had no idea where he had heard of it. Of course, years later I found out that since Motown hadn't released a single when the album was released, some radio stations picked their own track to plug and went with YOUR LOVE IS SO GOOD FOR ME.
Single wise, "To Shy To Say" for the UK and "Top Of The World USA.
I find "Your Love Is So Good For Me" the weakest song on the album.