I loved Getting Ready for Love....still do but thought Your love Is So Good was ok...just an lp cut
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I loved Getting Ready for Love....still do but thought Your love Is So Good was ok...just an lp cut
My favourite Diana songs tend to be different from most other fans so it'e probably no surprise that I'm not that enamoured of the BIM album particularly after the blockbusting Diana Ross [[1976).
Getting Ready For Love was just about okay but it was probably Diana's name which carried itto a moderate chart placing in the UK and TopOf The World and Your Love Is So Good For Me did little.
To me the one track which might have gone well in the UK was All Night Lover.
It was odd how the album performed in the UK - it never actually managed to make the chart but sold consistently just outside it for quite a period and outsold many of Diana's albums which did chart- it finished up not that far from going Gold.
I agree that All night lover had hit potential. I still maintain that Getting ready for love was a good choice for the first single despite it not being my personal favorite. Ken Bruce plays it regularly on radio 2. When you consider that programme is the most listened to radio show in the UK that is no mean feat.
I think the highest position Baby it's me reached in the UK was no.51, but as you rightly point out it sold in modest quantities for several months. It remains one of her finest achievements in my opinion, but Diana herself never considered it as one of her finest moments.
I think Take Me Higher is one of her top 5 albums....
Solid album.but so are the Boss...Diana...Touch Me ...BIM...
And DR 70...DR76...The Force...Blue
Albums I like as a whole are not what I listen the most.
all her Ashford & Simpson are top albums, so are BIM, diana, TMH, EDAND, and to me, but not only me, Ross 1983.
But my Itunes statistics tell another story. Songs I listen the most are from Swept Away :confused: , also from FBTP [[only 2 of them), TMH, everything is everything.
Songs from the Ashford & Simpson are not on the top.
In 2004, Ross briefly included "I Ain't Been Licked" in her show. I remember reading a review that thought it was her "latest song" [[though I cannot find it online anymore). The LA Review does mention the song, even uses it for the title of its review.
https://www.laweekly.com/aint-been-licked/
Made a separate playlist of my favorite Ross album tracks.. Alot of Ross..76...Boss.. Diana...BIM ...and a few of Ross 78 and Ross 83
I love this thread as BIM has always been an anomaly to me in that it is better as a whole than its individual parts. My problem is that it followed an album containing red hot #1’s with an album containing no obvious hits and I disagree with all three single choices Motown issued.
I think getting ready for love, with his wonderful vocal, Has a mess for a chorus which would keep it from widespread adds. Remove the song writing 101 lyrics and it might have fared better. Also, the album was out a month before the single came out that’s depriving the single from a months worth of diana ross fans grabbing the new single and pushing it further up the chart which would, in turn, entice more program directors to add it. The song might have gone top 10 if the single was out six weeks before the album.
you got it it’s a wonderful album track but there’s nothing about it that says radio.
Your love is so good for me it’s just your average run-of-the-mill disco song that there was a million of at the time there’s nothing clever, there’s no Hook, there’s no great wonderful new sound, there’s no reason for radio stations to play it.
my choices would have been
1) top of the world: a song I’m personally not that fond of but I think it was radio friendly and 77.
2) The same love that made me laugh might have done well with a reworked ending. The fade, as it stands now, would not have worked.
3) Come in from the rain I think could have done well certainly on the adult contemporary chart.
4) The title track, baby it’s me com would have been a definite R&B number one that I think with the right promotion could’ve been huge across-the-board. It was innovative, fresh And there was nothing like it on the radio. I would’ve had her do it on Saturday night live, the tonight show, and perhaps something in prime time. It’s quite likely her first competitive Grammy would have been for this. I’m very disappointed that Motown didn’t issue this after the failure of you got it. What did they have to lose?
This album and Diana and Marvin are, in my opinion, the best examples of how inept Motown was choosing single releases for Miss ross.
I agree with alot of what you said but Getting Ready is still a favorite.
That being said. Come in from the rain is beautiful...love All Night Lover and Top of The World.
Seems strange motown wa so on point in the 60s but in the ,70s.....they lost focus.it was like the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing or perhaps to many chefs in the kitchen. Someone was confused .
Ps..... baby it's me was on the table to be a single.....but then ....it wasn't.....
What happened to the pr dept.
Think Motown should stayed in detroit
I love the 12" mix of Your Love is So Good For Me....they paired it with a Thelma Houston cut for the Motown Disco 12" [[I CANT LIVE WITHOUT YOUR LOVE) Motown did 2 different artists on 1 Extended 12" for awhile....WHAT YOU GAVE ME was released disco cued for refrain/break/bridge coupled with Bonnie Pointers FREE ME FROM MY FREEDOM...
Diana's debut and Baby It's Me are my fav solo LPS....EIE, LTISH, TMEITM are all lowest on my list....the rest are all in the middle....I enjoy them selected cuts, and in parts.
I don't like any of the 2nd Motown period LPS much, and the RCA hits comp does it nicely for me with that period....I only got Swept Away and Eaten Alive....I love 50% of both of them... the title cut Swept Away is in my top 5 Ross solo tracks...
in the BIM EE, i really enjoy the updated version of the title track. I agree with many of the comments here that the album worked as a whole beautifully. but the individual songs by themselves might not have been as exciting as singles.
in the EE, Andy and team did a great job with giving a little more life to the songs. the strings on the intro of GRFL just make that song pop! really perks up the opening. and i think the EE verion of the title track might have been a good single. your love is so good for me is rather bland disco. and she'd had such a huge hit with Hangover. the funkiness of the title track might have been a good, new sound for her.
At that particular time there was only a top 50 singles and albums chart published for the public, but there was a top 100 chart for the music industry executives etc. This is where i saw the Baby it's me chart placing. The two "no charting" singles you mentioned also charted, but only in the lower reaches of the top 100.
Touch Me In The Morning was on the whole a great album - the first four tracks were all good enough to be successful singles and Diana did superb versions of I Won't Last A Day Without You and Imagine [[brave!!).
What ruined it for me were the three "Baby" songs which I didn't care for at all.
I just don't understand why Motown in the US only went with the title track as a single.
The UK was wise enough to release All Of My Life and Bluebrock has told us they intended further releases but were instructed by the parent company to concentrate on the Diana & Marvin album and Last Time I Saw Him.
Definitely missed opportunities.
YES....I loved the single....I didn't get the LP til a few years later, and it didn't do much for me. I should give it another whirl...I only played it a few times...it didn't seem to be growing on me, so I let it be. I was listening to Surrender and Lady Sings the Blues a lot at the time...and I was really starting to get brain deep into my Stones/Bowie/Suzi Quatro rock period
TITM album is lovely but a very specific niche. it's mellow, thoughtful and moody. but not one that really would be played at a party. too soothing and soft
But IMO the most important aspect of the album is showing of the development and maturation of Diana as a vocalist. totally different sound from the A&S albums.
I love My Baby My Own. Beautiful track
share some love....sweet summertime living....fire don't burn....we can never light the flame again we're outakes from Ross 78....
Supposedly there are three more possible tracks with hdh.
I think YWTW is a fairly durable sound...not hit-worthy but pleasantly listenable!