Supremes fans, what did y'all think of the girls' 1964 Battle of the Bands vs the Velvelettes performance? [[Supremes performance was included on Meet the Supremes expanded, Velvelettes on their Anthology.) Your fandom aside, who would you have voted for? I'm obviously a huge Supremes fan, and I'm nothing more than a casual fan of the Velvelettes, but I like to think I can be objective. On a normal singing day, I personally don't think Carolyn was really any "better" of a singer than Diana was. During the performance Diana sounds hoarse to me, but even with that Carolyn doesn't really sound any better to my ears. The Velvelettes background comes across as a better blend, but I have to wonder how much of the fact that they have, what, three or four background singers to the Supremes two, how much that plays a factor in the two sounds.

But ultimately I think I might have voted for the Velvelettes over the Supremes also if for only one reason: the Velvelettes performed better material. The Supremes mostly did their own songs, but aside from maybe "Lovelight" I'm not sure it served them well when they were up against the Velvelettes covering big hits of the day like "Nitty Gritty" and "I Can't Wait Until I See My Baby's Face". Although the Supremes do get points for at least attempting "Anyone Who Had a Heart", a song I think they should've recorded and maybe kept in the act awhile longer. I would've loved to hear Diana in her natural voice singing the song. But there was no way the Supremes were going to win over a crowd at the Graystone doing "Make Someone Happy".

There's a funny anecdote about how after the Supremes lost, a Velvelette walked into a restroom and found Diana kicking the door of a stall. She should've been kicking herself, Flo, Mary and whoever helped them come up with that set list. There was no winning with that.