Quote Originally Posted by BayouMotownMan View Post
The Reflections lp was not a failure; while it did not chart as well as the previous studio sets it did good sales and turned a profit.

I think what hurt the lp was the name change and the fact that Gordy flooded the market with Supremes. Their catalog of current lps was immense in 1968.
The market wasn’t flooded with Supremes product at all. They only had one album on the chart. The fact that their catalog was still in print would not be a factor on a brand-new album release. If you look at every act in the top 50, I assure you most of their catalog were still in print. Anyway, greatest hits was the great equalizer with the Supremes catalog. After that their previous studio albums really dropped off.

I don’t believe the name change had any effect whatsoever other than perhaps negligible. Most of the general public who were buying Supremes albums didn’t care enough one way or another what the billing was like to make them not want to buy an album that they otherwise wanted to buy. If there had been a decent selection of songs, that’s all that would have mattered.

The main change didn’t seem to have any effect whatsoever on Greatest Hits which was Motown‘s biggest selling album until songs in the key of life. The name change means a lot to us Supremes nut cases. One of my absolute very dearest friends, 55 years later, is still carping because they used the name change on greatest hits when none of the singles on there were issued under the new name. And even he bought the album. [[He also is still crabbing about the fact that diana ross got separate dealing with her own title card in the opening credits for TCB.) They were still selling out arenas after the name change and huge college campuses. It wasn’t like Republicans today who won’t let their kids watch Snow White anymore, all the scintilla of the Fanbase would buy any music they wanted to hear regardless of billing.

I think the departure of HDH had everything to do with it - too many boring covers. The previous album, HDH, had some very very iffy tracks on it. That limp dick arrangement for heat wave, for example, says that Motown didn’t give a damn and after a couple questionable tracks on A Go Go, I think the fans were thinking twice before they made such a big investment. Also I’m sure that some people were scared off by Rogers and Hart not realizing the kind of material it was.

i’m sure that the departure of Florence Ballard had an effect on everything. I was her number one fan and didn’t bail on the group. I know some people did.

i’m very glad you mentioned that the album was successful and turned a profit. Motown continued to put out albums on groups that did not chart like the Marvelettes and Martha common or charted poorly like the Supremes for Topps duets. He didn’t cost them a lot to put an album out as most of the expanse was built against the group.

I also think the cover art could’ve been improved. The actual concept of all the photographs I think works very well, but I think they could have used a reflective silver paper or a lot more color around the photographs. There’s just too much white paper for an album concept design during the summer of love.