IT'S ALL BEEN SAID BEFORE / Supremes - 1975

[telekin]

Does Mary's voice have a certain quality to her that lent itself better for certain styles than others? Absolutely. But this tired, repeated notion that she couldn't carry an upbeat tune or wasn't commercial enough is a bit ridiculous. Anything is commercial regardless of its tempo and style. I don't think for a second that Mary's voice had anything to do with "He's My Man" not doing well on the charts.

Exactly this. I mean, there's also a lot of fan hairsplitting going on here, which is also par for the course on a fan group , naturally. I honestly don't think your average, casual listener would be able to make any of the distinctions we're making here.

I personally love Mary and Scherrie on He's My Man, and the more I listened to it, the more I loved that there were two vocal textures on display here. Speaking "technically," [[not really, but let's just say..) Mary starting off lower and more sensual doesn't take anything away from it to me. On the contrary, it gives the song dynamics. I don't think starting off at full-throttle and staying there would have improved things. It's to the song's benefit that you have Mary starting the song more softly and then Scherrie coming in and taking it to the top, to my ears. One may say that the lyrics are light and even a little silly, but for someone to have said that it's a song that "goes nowhere" is not really paying attention.