She did do Chain Reaction on the show as well. I do agree though. I really didn’t know why she did “Touch by touch” since it wasn’t even a single. I guess it was chosen because it fit for the big opening with all the dancers and props.
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Well, I'll just note that even though "Mirror, Mirror" was a top 10 pop hit and "The Boss" was not, you rarely hear MM in her live show but she ALWAYS includes "The Boss." As for "Swept Away" -- I have never heard her sing that in 30 years of live performances. "Missing You" is lovely and was used in a recent-ish tour as a Motown and MJ tribute. But I've not heard it in while.
Of course, not every Motown track was great. But all of her magical moments as a recording artist were at Motown. I happen to think "Reach Out, I'll Be There" is one. Her vocal is wonderful and those background vocals are on fire. She loves it, too. She brought it back for the ill-fated "Return To Love" tour. And it was one of many high points of her 2004 "comeback" show at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.
The only proof we need that the RCA years are better left to history is that she doesn't consistently sing anything from that period except WDFFIL. She has only occasionally sung "Missing You" or "Chain Reaction" but otherwise her setlist is strictly Motown...and some of that "I Love You" mess.
P.S. I've noted for the official record that "Fool For Your Love" does not make YOUR ears bleed -- and that Florence likes "Shockwaves."
Mirror mirror was always a part of her shows up until the 2000’s. Then she dropped it. I believe she sang it this year at her birthday gig. Missing you was also always in her act. She only sometimes does it now. Those 2 plus fools were the guaranteed RCA songs she would sing.
Many of the RCA songs like MIRROR, MIRROR, CHAIN REACTION, and MISSING YOU were dropped when her show's running length became shorter. Ditto for ENDLESS LOVE and most numbers from LADY besides DON'T EXPLAIN.
I also think she does the songs that accommodate her current register. The last time I heard her sing MIRROR MIRROR, MISSING YOU, and ENDLESS LOVE in concert, I noticed the keys were lower.
In agree with you about "reach out i'll be there'. It is one of Diana's most committed vocal performances and Nick and Val's production is quite sublime.
slightly off topic, it was Luther Vandross's personal favorite performance by Diana so we are in exhalted company!
I would add "Telephone" "More And More" and "Love Will Make It Right to songs that i think stand up well to many of her motown recordings.
I disagree in that i find "Summertime" as exquisite as many of her motown classics and "Telephone" as good as any of the songs on the diana album.
Worst songs for me are the vanilla pop confections as in "Anywhere You Run To", "Never To Late" "Two Can Make It" "Children".....Aghhhh.
Perhaps, but that can't be used as evidence of those RCA songs being deemed of less quality than her Motown songs. Those songs have been in her act since leaving RCA. When's the last time she did "Someday We'll Be Together"? Or "Surrender"? Or "I Thought It Took A Little"? And certainly none of those songs are of any less quality than stuff like "I Will Survive" which Diana performs as if she was the one who had a hit with it.:rolleyes: I think her RCA period is often left for the history books as opposed to Diana's shows because we fans generally regard the music as forgettable. As I said before, most of it was second rate- some even third rate- to most of what she recorded at Motown. But for me there are exceptions to that rule.
I absolutely agree about "Reach Out I'll Be There". One of Diana's finest vocal performances. Maybe I should've left it off the list because I can see how my opinion of it might have been confusing, but it was on the list because it was a horrible choice as a single, unlike the songs I highlighted at RCA which were perfect choices. As for the magic of Ross, I guess when one hears the magic it's always a subjective time. Those songs I mentioned as being A quality RCA cuts, IMO, can't be quality unless Diana's magic is present. That's key to me loving any Ross song, regardless of record label.
Add me in for "Shockwaves" also Guy.:cool:
Bluebrock, thanks for that info. Luther is never off-topic as far as I'm concerned. He was a Ross connoisseur, and his talent for background vocal arrangement and execution is legendary. So hearing that he loved ROIBT made my day. We are indeed in esteemed company.
The rearrangement of ROIBT fits what Luther did with his covers so that is no surprise to me at all. It is one of Diana's greatest recordings as a solo artist! It deserves to be as big of a hit as ANMHE was. Motown dropped the ball on this. Should've been way up than it was.
You are most welcome Guy. I am sure Luther would have produced a strong album on Diana. He had a couple of classic songs in mind for her to cover but i cannot recall what they were without consulting my diaries which are currently stored away. He also intended to include a duet between the two legends. It is so frustrating that she was having none of it. You only need to listen to the beautiful "it's hard for me to say" to get a glimpse of what sweet music they could have made together.
In the end it's all a matter of personal taste.
Yes, the Motown albums on the whole performed better than the RCA output but give me Silk Electric, Swept Away or Eaten Alive any time over many of the Motown ones such as diana.
I loved Upside Down and My Old Piano but the other tracks did little for me even I'm Coming Out - I just the thought the melody was off-key.
I know this is a minority view.
I'm one of the UK public who loved her ballads such as Still In Love, Love Lies or In Your Arms from Silk Electric for example.
EMI in the UK missed some golden opportunities to capitalise on several surefire hits during the 70s.
Had Eaten Alive been the follow up to WDFFIL i think Diana would have scored some hits from the album.
She lost one hell of a lot of momentum following the release of Silk Electric. Everyone i knew at the time thought it awful and the reviews were terrible [[UK). Had it not been for "Muscles" the whole thing would have been a disaster. The album sold quite well simply because Diana was at the peak of her popularity.
I think Luther was probably too much of an R&B artist for DR. Luther was good in his musical lane but did not have the same crossover success as Ross did. I've always viewed Ross as a R&B/Pop hybrid star and recording artist, not pure pop and not a typical R&B artist. There were certain producers who could straddle that line when producing Ross, most specifically Ashford & Simpson. I think Diana Ross has shined the most on songs that make you either want to dance to or sing along to- lead or background. I'm not sure that Luther would have been able to do that for Ross.
Yet Luther worked with Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Richard Marx, etc,etc. Diana Ross is just stupid and has zero talent as a producer. She should have taken Tyler Perry up on his movie offer, no one else wants her!
It's Hard for Me to say but I divaly disagree with you on this point.
An album by DR, produced by Luther would have been a delight.
I am grateful for the few gems Luther was involved with DR.
Just imagine a duets album, "Luther and Diana"!
I guess a road to divaville never led to hitsville!
Flo i'm gonna echo Bluebrock's comments. your thoughts here are so interesting. please keep sharing! :)
I do find her early rca material to be enjoyable. maybe not meeting the lofty standards associated with her final motown content but i don't find WDFFIL and SE to be hideous.
As for diana 80, i enjoy that album a lot and do appreciate the urban sound they achieved. some list it as a DR masterpiece and i would NOT go that far at all. Her performances are fine but no where near the vocal quality and interpretation she did on either Baby It's Me or The Boss. I have diana 80 to be a masterful, calculated move but not an artistic one
You are very angry again i see.
Luther did work with Diana on "it's hard for me to say" and also did some arranging and backing vocals on Silk Electric. I think he just produced the one song on Whitney too.He also just worked on one song with Mariah and Janet Jackson . Did he do more work with Richard Marx than he did with Diana? And who are the etc,etc?Not sure i have heard of them. What genre are they and on what songs did Luther work with them?
I hope that anger and bitterness in your soul that threatens to eat you up subsides soon.
I hope you find the inner peace and happiness that has thus far eluded you . Hope springs eternal.
As you yourself have pointed out sup, it's kind of interesting to read fans different takes on certain albums. For me Silk Electric is the antithesis of everything she should not have done whereas Eaten Alive is a fairly decent attempt at creating a good album. Not great by any means, but most certainly respectable.
If 'Swept Away' and 'Eaten Alive' had been Diana's first two albums for RCA she would have had a much better run of success after leaving Motown. Though not perfect, they were at least albums not just a bunch of songs thrown together like a cheap K-Tel compilation.
Better still if the Eaten Alive song was cut altogether and another Gibb song [[eg Islands in The Stream - originally written with Diana in mind I think) had replaced it. The album could have been renamed 'Experience' ;)
I adore Miss Ross, but yes some very foolish choices, Islands In The Stream being the second biggest, the biggest being turning down the script for The Bodyguard in the 70's which was slated for her and Ryan O Neil back in the day and then the script just gathered dust for a few decades till Whitney came along.
hehe - i know. the differences are so intriguing among the fans
Now let me explain my problems with Eaten:
1. the production of Diana's vocals - so muffled and buried
2. the grating, clashing sound of Diana's nasal tones and the Gibbs nasal background vocals
as for the songs, i do actually like the material. had those two issues been resolved it would have been an excellent album. but as is, i find it nearly unlistenable
Now i do acknowledge that Silk Electric is not a homerun. Some people have said that, other than Muscles, it's all rejected, leftover tracks from WDFFIL. That she simply dug those out and slapped them onto an album in order to have more product. I don't know if that's true or not as i don't have the production timelines and dates. IMO Diana was at the top of her game in the early 80s. huge hit records with motown, she successfully moved to RCA and got a fuckload of money. For years she'd simply done what she was told - she sang what was placed in front of her. Now she was in charge. I see SE as her saying "hey - i've never sung reggae or hard rock. let's try it! why not" let's make the album with each track being a totally different genre and test/play/experiment.
I do find that the vocal production is not great - muffled here too and too much echo at times. and Diana does seem to just coast through the material. but i appreciate her experimentation. she'd spent 20+ years doing what others told her to do so i can understand her saying "let me just play around and try things"
I actually liked SILK ELECTRIC when I first bought it. It wasn't one of my faves, but songs like FOOL FOR YOUR LOVE, ANYWHERE YOU RUN TO, and I AM ME were pleasing to me. Hell, I even thought she was clever to get a writing and publishing credit with TURN ME OVER. :D It was only as the years went on that I became less enamored of it.
Re EATEN ALIVE, I was turned off by the title track from the moment I bought the single. It sounded like a third-rate SWEPT AWAY, just a bunch of noise. I even disliked the single's picture sleeve. I give her points for the video, though.
When I bought the album, I didn't think it was bad. I thought OH TEACHER, EXPERIENCE, and especially CHAIN REACTION were great. But the rest of it never grabbed me. I barely remember what most of the songs on Side 2 sound like. To this day, I only play it if I'm having a Diana-fest.
The video with Ross as a savage jungle cannibal/tigress? I was just a teenager but I knew it was very, very wrong for her to be depicted in that manner. I was embarrassed for her.
I didn't buy the EA album but I did get the 12" single way back when. To my enduring shame, it is on my current iPod gym playlist. It is completely undanceable but hearing her and MJ trade squeals and nonsensical exhortations on the extended version is great for cardio.
Was it true that 'Enough is Enough' was originally supposed to be a Barb/Diana duet or was it always supposed to be Donna Summer? I should know this, but haven't had enough coffee yet lol
i never heard Raining was supposed to be a duet, as in Enough is Enough. I thought the writer was trying to get Diana, Cher, Bette and others to sing it and none would take it. The Weather Girls finally did and shared the leads
^ Considering both songs were written by Paul Jabara, I could see Paul wanting to make IRM a duet with two superstar divas lol