Originally Posted by
RanRan79
I have to admit that I'm not as familiar with this album as most of the rest of you. I have it, but I don't play it much. I don't have the track list committed to memory, and I don't know the words to most of the songs. As much of a fan as I am of Diana, her discography upon her second stint with Motown is pretty much where I check out. Off the top of my head, I do like "Force", "Battlefield" and "When You Tell Me", the latter of which I think needed a complete reworking of the chorus to make the song like up to its potential.
That being said, everything about Diana's Motown 2 era was either all wrong or it was off. I really believe that returning to Motown, Diana should have cut an album that had an updated Motown Sound sound, which was popular during the mid to late 80s. A driving beat, tambourines and horns, etc. She was the Queen of Motown. How does she come back to the label without all the stops being pulled out? How does she come back without capitalizing off of her connection to one of the greatest sounds in music history? It didn't have to be hokey. It didn't have to be her trying to pretend she was 20 years old again. With some thought, her return to Motown could have been very successful.
Sup mentioned that nobody was into disco. Dance music was huge in the early 90s. FBTP was released in the midst of that. WO was too soon, and IMO, while I like the song, it never came across to me as a hard hitting dance track. But if Diana could have lucked up on some kind of gem, it could have been a game changer. To me, "Take Me Higher" sounded exactly like some of the best stuff that was jumping in that early 90s period. Had she cut that song then, I think she could have had a winner. As it was, "Take Me Higher" sounds like Diana was a couple years too late to the party and everyone else had gone home.
That being said, I have to give Diana some credit with FBTP, as I think she was really trying to make something happen and not half assing the concept. But when it didn't take off, I think she should have made the transition the way Natalie Cole did. Leave all that other stuff to the new crop of folks coming up. In a jazz/blues/songbook lane, Diana, like Natalie, was one of the ones who had the chops to show folks how it was done. Missed opportunity.
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