Okay I am a bit bored so I thought I would share with you all some of my observations on the late 70's Supremes. I was a kid coming up in the 70's--I missed the 60's era Motown completely and only knew the songs as oldies. For some reason I bought High Energy in the 9th grade, and later purchased Mary Scherrie and Susaye, but I pretty much didn't know who the Supremes were until then. Anyway I played both albums for my friends who also didn't know the Supremes and I was really surprised at how differently they reacted to these two albums.

High Energy: All my friends who heard this album, really, really liked it. It sounded current and the songs were good. Nobody knew who was singing lead on any of the songs, it could have been the same person on all of them for all we knew, so there was no bias towards one group member or another. You know what song, unanimously, was their favorite? Don't Let My Teardrops Bother You. Every single person I played that song for loved it. Even later in the 80's in college, if I played the High Energy album for people, they tended to gravitate towards Don't Let My Teardrops Bother You. Based on these experiences, I really wonder if Motown had released that song as a single, maybe it would have been the hit they needed. People say that Motown had to release disco due to the disco hysteria at that time, but isn't true. Lots of ballads made it during that time period. Sarah Smile, Kiss and Say Goodbye, and Misty Blue are just a few that come to mind.

Now--How did my non Supremes fan friends react to Mary Scherrie and Susaye? They All, every single one of them, even the ones who loved High Energy, HATED this record. It was shocking to me. I loved MS&S--I liked every song on it. It was, however, more of a straight up funk/dance record than HE. Why it got such a bad reaction from my friends is an open question but I definitely heard the term "screeching" more than once. The only song most people seemed to be able to tolerate was We Should be Closer Together but even that didn't get the same positive reaction as DLMTDBY on the previous record.

Thoughts? I have only one more thing to add. In the late 80's my friend Michael, who was ten or twelve years older than I was, came over to my house and noticed a stack of albums on the floor of my bedroom. The first in the stack was Mary Scherrie and Susaye for whatever reason, and he busted out laughing when he saw the cover! Being older, he was very familiar with the original Supremes. he said something to the effect of "none of those people are Supremes!" I was taken back a bit. By that time I knew who Mary Wilson was and he didn't even know who she was in that photo! He saw the whole thing as a complete joke! I wonder how many people had the same reaction?

Thoughts?