Originally Posted by
RanRan79
"The Boss" was a killer cut. I can understand why it was chosen as the first single, but I do believe "Prize" was the better song. "The Boss" caught on with the public, but I do think it lacks something that a "Bad Girls" or "Ring My Bell" had which is why it ultimately didn't score as big. "Prize"'s intro immediately grabs. The track is hot and Diana is on fire vocally. As Sup points out, "The Boss" is fun, but I think it had a better chance of going top 10 if it had followed "Prize".
As usual Motown screwed things up. "Prize" wasn't even an official single. "House" was released with too much time between singles. I like "It's My House". Of the songs on the album "House" is the one I actually heard on the radio for years growing up. People loved it. I was shocked to learn that it wasn't a big hit because radio stations were playing it like it had been. For whatever reason pop radio didn't get behind it. I'm guessing it wasn't pop enough. I think it works as a final single, but more life could have been squeezed out of the album. "Once In the Morning" could've been the third single. I think it had hit potential. Then after "Once", comes "House". "Sparkle" has elements that I think could've made it a good single, but it needed an almost complete re-working to be a viable candidate.
In the end, "The Boss", and I guess even "It's My House", just don't rate as high as a lot of the other disco cuts of the time, especially when compared alongside what Donna Summer was releasing at the time. However, as a whole album, I think The Boss lp blows Donna's Bad Girls album out of the water, song for song, and holds up much better today.
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