My First Music Blog (I Know What Took Me So Long)

Hello Mog baby,

Did you really think I would forget you? I know it's been a loooonnngggg time since I did my last post, but I was caught up in the vacuum of real life so that distracted me from wanted to indulge in you.

I also was wondering what my first post should be. For some reason I was fretting what I should start out with which delayed me further. So today I decided to rely on an oldie but a goodie: Motown!!!

I began my love of Motown this past summer, and now the Supremes and Temptations are one of my favorite artists of all time. I decided to post one of my favorite Supreme songs because it is just heaven and has a vibe that is missing in today's music (I now officially sound like my father :P). Here is a youtube video of the Diana, Mary, and Florence singing "Love is Here, and Now You're Gone":

Formula: Diana's soul/pop aching lead + Mary's and Florence's strong harmonizing x a 60s stomp combined with blissful baroquness = Sublime 60s Pop Bliss

They don't make them like this. Included in one of their best 60s albums, The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland, this number one single of 1967 is one of many heartbreak masterpieces the Supremes produced. As always Diana is a great actor being able to emote the feeling of being dumped with Florence and Mary acting as the ever supporting friends. What makes this song even more memorable is Diana hamming it up with the spoken dialgoue adding a girly hiccup after each phrase. This would be a trademark that Michael Jackson would borrow in his solo work.

The music this time around is provided by LA musicians and not the Funk Brothers (Motown's house band during the 60s/early 70s). I'm surrprised to say that I could not hear the difference as the song is reminiscent of the Motown's trademark stomp sound.

What makes this song unique is the Baroque pop elements added to give it a more LA sound. In a way, this song can be seen as foreshadowing of Berry eventually moving the label to LA in the mid 70s.

The great thing about the Supremes is that their is a feeling of sadness/despair in their songs despite giving the impression of "happy, pop songs." TV footage shows Diana always smiling that big smile while singing lyrics that if you think about it, are really depressing. Even their uptempo songs like "You Keep Me Hanging On?" are not about celebrating love, but feeling like it is a pain in the butt.

It always seems weird when the girls (now grown, respectable women) would sing a happy song, because it felt too happy. It's the juxtaposition that suites them best, because it is not suppose to work in theory but does. And knowing what we know now about their complex relationship between them, it's that juxtaposition that makes songs like "Love is Here..." all the more interesting and belieavble.

*Bigs up to tayishere202 from Youtube for uploading this.