anything you would change about a diana ross album?

[daviddh]

thanks for the last thread,so i am jumping on the bandwagon here

1 postpone the release of EIE until late 71 and have a better album
2 Blue, release this in 1975 .why was this in the vault for 30 years
3 Last time I saw him, sorry what a mess. i like all the unreleased tracks better than what they actually released
4 Ross 78, this is obvious right! who picked this track listing??? to bad this album didnt have the To Love Again tracks. i combined these 2 albums for my own deluxe edition.
the rest of the changes would be the RCA albums
5,EA..remove the title track Eaten Alive ,go with Islands in the stream,like they were supposed to
6 WDFFIL sorry what a disappointment, I would add the two single Fools and Mirror to Silk Electric.minus Muscles.
7 add Muscles ,if we have to Ross 83,drop Up Front...awful and Girls,go with the unreleased tracks
8 Working Overtime,cancel or have Russ T remix it,drop the title cut.but I am leaning on cancelling it.
wow out of 65 albums I only changed 8. not bad really.
sorry spoke to soon
9 I Love You ,cancel it

[Albator]

Ross 83, I keep Up Front ! Maybe "muscles" on it, but also "fight for it", and we have 10 songs.
Swept away, without "Touch by touch" and "children".
TMH without "I've never loved a man before" and "swing it", but with "Soul Kiss", "To Many nights".

[jobeterob]

Swing It and I Never Loved A Man were the best

But wasn’t Swing It left off the US album or am I forgetting a lot?

[Albator]

Swing It and I Never Loved A Man were the best

But wasn’t Swing It left off the US album or am I forgetting a lot?

I hate this one.

[Bluebrock]

thanks for the last thread,so i am jumping on the bandwagon here

1 postpone the release of EIE until late 71 and have a better album
2 Blue, release this in 1975 .why was this in the vault for 30 years
3 Last time I saw him, sorry what a mess. i like all the unreleased tracks better than what they actually released
4 Ross 78, this is obvious right! who picked this track listing??? to bad this album didnt have the To Love Again tracks. i combined these 2 albums for my own deluxe edition.
the rest of the changes would be the RCA albums
5,EA..remove the title track Eaten Alive ,go with Islands in the stream,like they were supposed to
6 WDFFIL sorry what a disappointment, I would add the two single Fools and Mirror to Silk Electric.minus Muscles.
7 add Muscles ,if we have to Ross 83,drop Up Front...awful and Girls,go with the unreleased tracks
8 Working Overtime,cancel or have Russ T remix it,drop the title cut.but I am leaning on cancelling it.
wow out of 65 albums I only changed 8. not bad really.
sorry spoke to soon
9 I Love You ,cancel it

Great post David, and i agree with 90% of your suggestions. I think Eaten Alive could have been saved if someone had given the song a better mix. The released version was a hot mess. It is such a pity that Diana turned down Islands in the stream in the early 80's. What was she thinking?
It sounds like you don't like Muscles? I would have to disagree there. I would have loved a full Michael Jackson produced album as was originally planned.

[sup_fan]

EIE - yep. postpone and swap in some of the unreleased tracks
surrender - move up to late 70 to hit the Xmas market and issue title track as lead single
Last time - the Bob G tracks should mostly be held off for maybe another album pre-Diana Ross 76. add in more of the Ron Miller tracks. make the lp mostly Michael Masser and Ron Miller work
Ross 78 - make this a disco album and replace side 2 with the unreleased tracks
Silk Electric - reduce the use of echo and synth on her vocals
Eaten Alive - completely remix the album. Bring her vocals much more forward and remove all of the echo and synth effects. Remove all Gibb background vocals and replace with standard BG vocalists

[daviddh]

Great post David, and i agree with 90% of your suggestions. I think Eaten Alive could have been saved if someone had given the song a better mix. The released version was a hot mess. It is such a pity that Diana turned down Islands in the stream in the early 80's. What was she thinking?
It sounds like you don't like Muscles? I would have to disagree there. I would have loved a full Michael Jackson produced album as was originally planned.

I do like Muscles, even tho I think its kinda a womans song, did I just say that. I did like it, even my sister who is not a ross fan per say,like DR in the 80s. shes a country girl. anyway, was just thinking it didn't fit and maybe fit better on ross 83.
yes I would have remixed the Eaten Alive album. to dark for me at times but I like Dianas vocals

[RanRan79]

Ooh I can't wait to dig into this one! I don't have the time at the moment. But I'm definitely gonna put my two cents in in a couple of hours. I'm so loving these MUSIC discussions!!

[daviddh]

i do like the Gibb backing vocals on some songs such as Chain Reaction. great song.
overall good album,loved Crimes of Passion and Im Watching You

[RanRan79]

I like Sup's idea of releasing Surrender in late 70. Even early 71 would've worked for me. And then in summer or fall 71 release EIE. As far as tracks go, I love Surrender as is. I'd probably replace "Long and Winding Road" with "Wish I Knew" or "Baby I'll Come" or maybe one of the cuts from the Bones Howe sessions.

I've always thought the Touch Me album was a bit too short. At approximately 34 minutes, there was a good six or so minutes that could have been used for extra tracks. The only song I would've cut is "Imagine". I would've replaced it and added additional tracks with "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Got to Be There", "Kewpie Doll" and maybe "To the Baby".

Diana and Marvin...I would've had less covers and more original songs.

LTISH...I would've cut the title song and had it as a single only release. I would've kept "Sleepin", "When Will I Come Home to You", "I Heard a Love Song", "Stoned Liberty" and "Behind Closed Doors", while adding "I'll Be Here", "Why Play Games", "Get It All Together", and "Let Me Be the One". I would've given "You" a different arrangement.

Mahogany...I would've let the entire album be Diana vocal songs instead of so many instrumentals. The Mahogany album should be right up there with the soundtracks to Claudine, Sparkle, Willie Dynamite, Black Caesar, etc.

Ross...I like the idea of making it a dance album.

Why Do Fools...I would've turned over production to Lionel Richie. I believe that album would've been classic had he been at the helm. And of course Lionel would've never given her that song so the album would also have to be called something else.

Silk Electric and Ross...Because I believe Why Do Fools would have been a blockbuster for Ross and Richie, I don't see why their string of hit albums had to stop with the first one. Definitely would have given him the followup to SE. However by the time of Ross, Lionel was recording his own fantastic album in Can't Slow Down, so maybe for Ross it might be nice to hook her up with Michael Jackson or Quincy Jones.

Red Hot R&B...pretty much scrapped every song. Let Naralda or Luther or Kashif do something with her for this one.

[Circa 1824]

Why the heck can't she smile on an album cover? That vogue model pose got terribly repetitious. Many of her album covers portrayed little or no energy.

[Bluebrock]

Why the heck can't she smile on an album cover? That vogue model pose got terribly repetitious. Many of her album covers portrayed little or no energy.

She always thought she looked better when not smiling! That is the simple answer.
Everyone was amazed when she agreed to be photographed smiling for the "very special season" album. I think the only previous time she smiled on an album cover was for "everything is everything"

[lakedistrictlad1]

The only thing I'd change about a Diana Ross album is the fact we haven't had one. For years.
What a waste of time and talent. All the music we could have had ��

[vgalindo]

The only thing I'd change about a Diana Ross album is the fact we haven't had one. For years.
What a waste of time and talent. All the music we could have had ��

So true. It’s ridiculous that an artist of her legend and superstar status hasn’t released an album in so many years.

[Albator]

She always thought she looked better when not smiling! That is the simple answer.
Everyone was amazed when she agreed to be photographed smiling for the "very special season" album. I think the only previous time she smiled on an album cover was for "everything is everything"

I like all her RCA pictures, except Eaten Alive. What she did best at RCA was the visual aspect. Hair, gowns, pictures...

[PeaceNHarmony]

Hmmm ... not much for the Monday-morning quarterbacking myself, but I can't totally argue with some of the more positive comments here. As others have said, my only absolute would be 'more!!!'.