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Something about the Supremes' music was VERY melancholy! I know everyone knows about how the Funk Brothers played the instrumentation of Supremes songs with this peppiness and the Supremes recorded it with so much energy (even the non-Supremes, a/k/a Andantes, lol) but I kept reading their lyrics and when you compare it to their performances and instrumentation, the lyrics are very DEPRESSING! LOL
I mean, come on... "Where Did Our Love Go" "Baby Love" "Come See About Me" "Stop! In the Name of Love" "Nothing But Heartaches" "My World Is Empty" "Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart" "The Happening" (very peppy production but very sad lyrics, lol) "You Keep Me Hangin' On" "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone" "In and Out of Love" "Reflections" It was like they were recording happy songs but they really weren't! Holland-Dozier-Holland and the Supremes must've gone through some PROBLEMS to create what they created! When it came to sadness though, the Miracles and the Temptations - thanks notably to Smokey's productions - were masters at it. But I wonder what kind of magic made the Supremes sing upbeat when the lyrics told of a very different manner? Maybe we'll never know but it still made for great songs though. 
Just asking a crazy-ass question. Feel free to answer, or wonder, or ignore, lol. | |
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i never thought about it. u may be on to something.
maybe that was it. the secret. that made their music last so long.... sad lyrics, with an upbeat twist....  | |
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Maybe its the same thing that makes little white kids walk around dressed like gangsters and trying to be street thugs in the suburbs...?
Style and a sign o the times... Motown at that time was known for their "Motown sound" and they even made people like Marvin Gaye do things like Hitchhike and Stuborn kinda fellow so he could get a hit..I think it was just a groove that they were riding with at the time..much like how they went with Norman Whitfields vibe as soon as Sly/Jimi/started rocking the funk mixed with rock wah wahs and psychedelia...If it was making $$$$ I think Motown was selling it..and Down with it !  | |
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prettymansson said: Maybe its the same thing that makes little white kids walk around dressed like gangsters and trying to be street thugs in the suburbs...?
Style and a sign o the times... Motown at that time was known for their "Motown sound" and they even made people like Marvin Gaye do things like Hitchhike and Stuborn kinda fellow so he could get a hit..I think it was just a groove that they were riding with at the time..much like how they went with Norman Whitfields vibe as soon as Sly/Jimi/started rocking the funk mixed with rock wah wahs and psychedelia...If it was making $$$$ I think Motown was selling it..and Down with it ! True. About the end of the sixties, the more successful artists of the Motown label had moved on with the times (as you said). I mean it WAS "the sound of young America". | |
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To me, it's not just the lyrics. There's something about the music and performances that has a dark edge to it. "Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you." - Kahlil Gibran | |
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Raze said: To me, it's not just the lyrics. There's something about the music and performances that has a dark edge to it.
True, especially when you compared them to their female contemporaries. It was probably done on purpose, lol. Like "The Happening" for example. | |
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That's what I love about their songs. They have an innocent charm overlaid with this morose quality. The world is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
"You still wanna take me to prison...just because I won't trade humanity for patriotism." | |
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