Showing posts with label You Can't Hurry Love. Show all posts

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Diana Ross/The Supremes: Top 50 Songs

image from washingtonblade.com

Diana Ross was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 26, 1944. As a member of the Supremes, she topped the Billboard charts twelve times and helped establish them as the top female group of all time. She left the group in 1970, but launched straight into a successful solo career. In celebration of her birthday, here are her top 50 songs of all time, with and without the Supremes. #1 songs are noted as follows: #1 US (Billboard pop chart), #1 AC (Billboard adult contemporary chart), #1 RB (Billboard R&B chart), and #1 UK (the UK charts).

The Top 50 Diana Ross/Supremes Songs

Where Did Our Love Go

1. Endless Love (with Lionel Richie, 1981) #1 US, #1 RB, #1 AC
2. Stop! In the Name of Love (The Supremes, 1965) #1 US
3. Where Did Our Love Go (The Supremes, 1964) #1 US, #1 RB
4. Baby Love (The Supremes, 1964) #1 US, #1 RB, #1 UK
5. You Can’t Hurry Love (The Supremes, 1966) #1 US, #1 RB
6. Upside Down (1980) #1 US, #1 RB
7. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (1970) #1 US, #1 RB
8. You Keep Me Hangin’ On (The Supremes, 1966) #1 US, #1 RB
9. Love Child (The Supremes, 1968) #1 US
10. Someday We’ll Be Together (The Supremes, 1969) #1 US, #1 RB

Stop! In the Name of Love

11. Love Hangover (1976) #1 US, #1 RB
12. Touch Me in the Morning (1973) #1 US, #1 AC
13. Do You Know Where You’re Going To (Theme from ‘Mahogany’) (1975) #1 US, #1 AC
14. Come See About Me (The Supremes, 1964) #1 US
15. I’m Gonna Make You Love Me (The Supremes with the Temptations, 1968)
16. I Hear a Symphony (The Supremes, 1965) #1 US
17. I’m Coming Out (1980)
18. Back in My Arms Again (The Supremes, 1965) #1 US, #1 RB
19. Reflections (The Supremes, 1967)
20. Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1981)

21. The Happening (The Supremes, 1967) #1 US
22. The Last Time I Saw Him (1973) #1 AC
23. Muscles (1982)
24. Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone (The Supremes, 1967) #1 US, #1 RB
25. Missing You (1984) #1 RB
26. Mirror, Mirror (1982)
27. All of You (with Julio Iglesias, 1984)
28. Remember Me (1970)
29. Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand (1970)
30. It’s My Turn (1980)

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

31. Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart (The Supremes, 1966)
32. Chain Reaction (1985) #1 UK
33. Ease on Down the Road (with Michael Jackson, 1978)
34. I’m Livin’ in Shame (The Supremes, 1969)
35. In and Out of Love (The Supremes, 1967)
36. When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes (The Supremes, 1974)
37. My Mistake Was to Love You (with Marvin Gaye, 1974)
38. My World Is Empty Without You (The Supremes, 1965)
39. The Boss (1979)
40. Gettin’ Ready for Love (1977)

Upside Down

41. Swept Away (1984)
42. Forever Came Today (The Supremes, 1968)
43. Nothing But Heartaches (The Supremes, 1965)
44. Pieces of Ice (1983)
45. You’re a Special Part of Me (with Marvin Gaye, 1973)
46. Some Things You Never Get Used To (The Supremes, 1968)
47. I’m Still Waiting (1971) #1 UK
48. I’ll Try Something New (The Supremes with the Temptations, 1969)
49. Good Morning Heartache (1973)
50. The Composer (The Supremes, 1969)

Endless Love

Awards:

Resources and Related Links:

Saturday, September 10, 2016

50 years ago: The Supremes “You Can’t Hurry Love” hit #1

You Can’t Hurry Love

The Supremes

Writer(s): Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland (see lyrics here)

Released: July 25, 1966

First Charted: August 5, 1966

Peak: 1² US, 1¹ CB, 1¹ GR, 1² HR, 1² RB, 3 UK, 3 CN, 6 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.)

Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.6 UK

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 5.0 radio, 10.0 video, 366.54 streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

“You Can’t Hurry Love” was the seventh chart-topper from the Supremes. Like its predecessors, it was written by the Motown songwriting and production trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Billboard magazine described it as “the group’s most exciting side to date.” ^WK “Every one of the Supremes’ hits had a big beat working for it, a four-four engine driven by handclaps and bass-drum hits. But none of the hits leading up to ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ had a beat quite that big.” ^SG “That beat is the focal point, even more than the vocals. Diana Ross and her fellow Supremes flit around that bassline like hummingbirds.” ^SG

Lamont Dozier, one of the songwriters, said “It was basically a gospel feel we were after.” ^FB To that end, they were inspired by the ‘50s gospel song “You Can’t Hurry God, He’s Right on Time” by Dorothy Love Coates & the Original Gospel Harmonettes. ^SG It includes the lines “You can’t hurry God/ You just have to wait/ Trust and give him time/ No matter how long it takes.”

In the Supremes’ hands, Diana Ross sings “as someone who wants to be in a relationship and who finds herself getting more and more impatient.” ^SG It “works less as a lonely woman’s lament and more as a piece of romantic advice.” ^SG Cash Box summed it up as a “pulsating pop-R&B rhythmic ode which contends that romance is a slow-developing game of give-and-take.” ^WK

Phil Collins’ 1982 cover of the song reached #10 in the United States and topped the charts in the UK, doing even better than the #3 peak of the original. Dozier considers it one of the best covers of a song by the Supremes. ^FB Dozier would later co-write “Two Hearts,” a #1 song in the United States for Collins from the 1988 movie Buster.

Resources:

^FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 207.
^DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 221.
^SF Songfacts
^SG Stereogum (9/18/2018). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan
^WK Wikipedia

Friday, November 5, 1982

Phil Collins’ Hello, I Must Be Going! released

First posted 9/15/2020.

Hello, I Must Be Going!

Phil Collins

Released: November 5, 1982

Peak: 8 US, 2 UK, 1³ CN, 15 AU

Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.9 UK, 13.8 world (includes US and UK)

Genre: mainstream pop-rock

Tracks: Click for codes to singles charts.

I Don’t Care Anymore (12/4/82, 39 US, 47 CB, 3 AR)
I Cannot Believe It’s True (5/7/83, 79 US, 80 CB)
Like China (12/4/82, 17 AR)
Do You Know, Do You Care? (11/6/82, 41 AR)
You Can’t Hurry Love (11/6/82, 10 US, 10 CB, 9 AC, 24 AR, 1 UK, 9 CN, 3 AU)
It Don’t Matter to Me
Thru These Walls (10/23/82, 56 UK, 34 AR)
Don’t Let Him Steal Your Heart Away (3/19/83, 45 UK)
The West Side
Why Can’t It Wait ‘Til Morning (5/83, 89 UK)

Total Running Time: 45:03

Rating:

3.475 out of 5.00 (average of 10 ratings)

Quotable: --

Awards:

About the Album:

After Genesis released their 1980 Duke album, Phil Collins decided it was time to release a solo album. One would understandably think the success of that album, Face Value, would mean he was moving on from the group he’d been with for ten years. Instead, he went back to work with Genesis and released Abacab later that year. Then he went right back to his solo career, releasing Hello, I Must Be Going! in 1982.

“The album wasn't a huge departure from the formula established on Face Value, built as it was on introspective, gut-spilling ballads, horn-driven R&B jams, arty rockers, and dramatic breakup songs. In fact, the first track, the vitriolic I Don’t Care Anymore, sounds like a very close relative of ‘In the Air Tonight,’ only less mysterious and more in your face. Still effective though, and with the same magical drum sound Collins got on that earlier song.” ^AMG

“The R&B-based tracks are well served by Earth, Wind & Fire horns, and if nothing is quite on par with ‘I Missed Again,’ there’s not a huge drop-off in quality.” ^AMG He does, however, offer up “the almost note-perfect take on the Supremes’ You Can't Hurry Love, which sounds less like a pastiche and more like a loving tribute.” ^AMG

There are a few less ballads, with Collins only slowing down on the lovely Don’t Let Him Steal Your Heart Away and the lush Why Can’t It Wait ‘Til Morning, which foreshadows his career as a singer for hire on many a movie soundtrack.” ^AMG

“There are a couple of surprises on Hello, notably the uptempo pop tune Like China, which features some blistering guitar work from Daryl Stuermer.” ^AMG “Another departure from Face Value comes on the song Thru These Walls, where Collins is playing a character instead of writing from a place of pain and frustration, which was one of the things that made that album so devastating.” ^AMG

Despite the change in tone from intensely personal and dark to slightly detached and even lighthearted in spots, the album is still a winning follow-up that shows Collins to be in full control of songwriting and production. It may be a shade less impressive than Face Value, but that was a hard act to follow.” ^AMG

Notes: A 2016 deluxe edition of the album included nine live songs from different years and demos for “Do You Know, Do You Care” and “Don’t Let Him Steal Your Heart Away.”