Originally Posted by
midnightman
We're really gonna leave out that she was raising her children in the mix? And also, Motown had no idea how to promote her? Why does her attitude get the 100% blame? If we're gonna compare, as Ran has said, Aretha was also deemed "difficult". How about Judy Garland back in the '60s [[I know, I know, y'all will say "wasn't she on drugs?"). Diana Ross had multiple issues that went against her in the '90s: 1.) she was getting older; 2.) while her '90s music saw her change with the times, who she was hadn't changed, neither did she want to, she was larger than life; 3.) Motown Records put all their promo on Boyz II Men and had no time for other artists with probably the exceptions of Stevie Wonder and the Temptations when they put out a product that they considered a seller of sorts and the times in which Diana released the '90s albums, Motown went through a revolving door of CEOs from Busby [[Workin' Overtime/Force), Harrell [[Take Me Higher) and Kedar [[Every Day Is a New Day) and, probably most importantly, 4.) music was starting to be MORE geared to the youth than they were in the '70s and '80s when middle aged acts did regularly score a top 40 hit, if you was lucky to catch on to a trend like Cher and Aretha or even Patti with the R&B crowd, you'd be able to hang in there, but if not, it just wasn't gonna happen.
I mean, we're gonna act like Diana Ross was the only legacy act that struggled to compete with the modern eras? Dionne Warwick's musical relevance had ended in the early '80s and only got a brief respite with a duet with a hot '80s artist who was about to run out of steam himself [[Geoffrey Osbourne) and then after that, her input went cold. Gladys Knight had R&B success as a solo act after leaving the Pips but she never again enjoyed the success she had with the Pips only having one gold album [[the one that included her cover of End of the Road, which was probably why it went gold anyway since BIIM was HOT). The Beach Boys were a touring act only at this point, no one wanted a record from them. Sinatra only had the Duets sets, he was too old to lead anymore and he was dying.
Only ones I knew that managed to hang besides from Cher and Aretha were Tina Turner and Tony Bennett. Also, Diana was known to the public as a trailblazer and trendsetter and here she was in the '90s chasing trends [[new jack swing, hip hop soul, etc.) instead of following her own path and as we can see from her rant at Vincent Patterson, she didn't really take to change well but she was far from the only one in that boat.
You KNOW there were legendary acts that were like "no I'm not doing that hippity hop crap, y'all try to make me look like a clown?" But Diana says it and "she's got an attitude". But James Brown could whine the same stuff and it's, "well you see, he wants what he wants".
Public perception can bite my black butt lol