(Diana Ross &) The Supremes: I Hear A Symphony - 1966
This review is for the download of the Hip-O-Select remaster with additional bonus and live tracks. Firstly, the sound on all of these releases (Meet The Supremes; Where Did Our Love Go; this one and Supremes A Go-Go) is absolutely superb. With all of them you get both the MONO and STEREO versions of the original album plus a further CD's worth of "extras" - unreleased material and live cuts. As a confirmed stereo man, I much prefer the stereo versions. They are simply wonderfully remastered. As good as I have ever heard this material.
With regard to the original album, musically. It is certainly not their best. The two great singles, I Hear A Symphony and My World Is Empty Without You are surrounded by covers of songs like Yesterday, Unchained Melody and "songs from the shows" like Stranger In Paradise. All massively orchestrated, especially Rodgers and Hart's With A Song In My Heart - nothing of the "Motown Sound" in many of them. People expecting the Funk Brothers' pounding backing will be disappointed by the saccharine nature of some of the tracks on this album.
After stomping hits in Stop! In The Name Of Love, Back In My Arms Again and Nothing But Heartaches, Diana and the girls returned with a number in I Hear A Symphony that, while still having an uptempo drum backing (and a great saxophone solo) has a sweet, soft vocal from Diana. The song is beautifully, dare I say - symphonic. It builds and builds and the girls' harmonies at the end are a treasure. On hearing it, Berry Gordy said he wanted it released NOW!!. He was right this time. The song was also covered by the Isley Brothers and Barbara McNair. It also has several different vocal mixes, which can get a bit confusing at times. Personally, I like the 2012 bassy remix that appears on this collection of it a lot.
My World Is Empty Without You is an atmospheric number that begins with a great, infectious bassline and gets driven along by some continually parping saxophone. Diana's vocal is suitably strong to match this gritty backing. It is one of the girls' most intrinsically soulful numbers. Amazingly, it wasn't quite as big a hit as the previous releases from the same year.
Anyway, back to the rest of the album - it seemed the thing to do in the mid 1960s for groups to record great singles and spend the rest of their time recording tributes to The Beatles and covering easy-listening standards. This changed a little with Love Child in 1968, but that was still three years away. The cover of The Toys' gorgeous A Lover's Concerto is excellent though. Diana's voice on this almost has me in tears. Lovely.
Any Girl In Love (Knows What I'm Going Through) is a return to the Motown Sound to a certain extent and stands up well, as does Everything Is Good About You with its classic Supremes sound.
Everything Is Good About You is a simply superb 'b' side to My World Is Empty Without You, and could easily have been a big hit itself. Its attractive orchestration is similar to I Hear A Symphony and the melody brings to mind Barry White's It May Be Winter Outside. Barbara McNair recorded the song in 1966.
He's All I Got ends the album on a real Motown-Northern Soul high note, thankfully. It is an absolute stonker of a hidden gem. It was a real Northern Soul favourite. It is uptempo in the style of Back In My Arms, pounding away from the first beat and featuring all three girls at their very best, vocally. I can't praise it enough. Love that deep, rumbling and melodic bass. Due to these tracks, the second half of this album is far more enjoyable.
The album is too much of an "easy listening" one for my liking though. One could imagine the older generation in the mid-sixties liking this. Maybe that was the intention.
