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>What did they do to re-invent the genre of R&B/Soul/Pop?
They (or Motown using them as avatars, however you want to look at it) redefined the idea of the girl group, basically by adding huge dollups of style and white-crossover appeal to the already established style of groups like the Crystals and the Shirelles.
>
>
>as performers they were rather one note...standing very close
>together and barely moving....
What Supremes were you watching? For one, they usually didn't stand terribly too close together, typically plotted across the stage in a row. Second, they usually had some, if not complicated, certainly perpetual choreography to do.
>
>many of their later records only feature Diana Ross....Mary,
>Flo and Cindy are absent from these recordings
This is also true of most of the other Motown girl groups being recorded during the late 1960s.
>
>At Motown, they were known as the "No-Hit Supremes" until
>Diana Ross decided to seduce Brian Holland and Berry
>Gordy....
Not entirely true. Diana's affair with Brian Holland happened long before he ever wrote them a hit, and her affair with Berry began long after they had hits. It is more correct to say that Berry's obsession with Ross (which was always there before it became physical) had a strong bearing on why the Supremes got try after try to make it before they actually did, and why once they did they became Motown's main focus at the detriment of any other artist on the label.
once HDH and Berry got on the case, the hits poured
>in...Ross previously was fucking Smokey Robinson in exchange
>for his writing and production, but Smokey's cuts on The
>Supremes went nowhere, and of course, Smokey's wife stepped in
>and put a stop to that arrangement...yeah, Miss Ross was
>fucking for tracks--to paraphrase Dallas Austin...
>
>Brian Holland's wife stopped the affair btwn him and Ross, so
>Ross set her sights on Gordy and they fell in love...
Ross never had to set her sights on Gordy; if anything, it's the reverse that is true: Gory set his sites on her.
because
>of Gordy and Ross' romance, Gordy focused most of his attn and
>the company resources to Ross and The Supremes causing other
>acts at the label to complain abt the neglect...it was Gordy's
>decision to focus his full attn on Ross that sent the company
>into a creative freefall as the 70's approached(not to metion
>destroying the group itself)...his goal of making Ross a movie
>star in part prompted the move of Motown to LA, putting The
>Funk Brothers and numerous loyal employees, including Gordy
>family members, out of work and ultimately ending an era in
>popular music...
Diana Ross fucking Berry Gordy can't shoulder the entire blame for the demise of the classic "Motown Sound". Gordy also left Detroit because of the riots, and because he wanted the company as a whole to go into TV and film. Diana Ross was less the reason behind the move so much as she was the linchpin: it was on the back of her success that Gordy planned to build an empire in film and television entertainment; by then, he was disinterested in music.
>
>without HDH and pussy whipped Berry Gordy, you dont have The
>Supremes...
now I will agree with this, lol.
>
>while other Motown acts were also reliant on Gordy's business
>savvy and the creative power of Motown's writers and
>producers, those acts were also powerhouse vocalists and great
>performers--some even wrote and produced as well...The
>Supremes were neither...in fact it was Ross' vocal
>limitations, that made Gordy decide that The Supremes were
>non-threatening enough to sell to White America...
I wouldn't call Ross' inability to sing like Aretha Franklin, or even Martha Reeves, a "limitation". Yes, she sung like a white woman (which is why the Supremes were able ot cross over like they did), but she had a style all her own: a cool, sort of chilly way of singing any song and gliding through it like it was child's play.
>
>outside of Ross' willingness to use sex to bring attn to the
>group, ultimately they were a blank canvas for Gordy to
>imprint his crossover dream on...
>
>did they make great music? yes....influence other girl groups?
>of course...did they sell alot of records and score many hits?
>without question...but as an artistic entity, they were pretty
>empty...you cant compare them to The Temptations, The Four
>Tops, Smokey, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, or even The Jackson
>5 as far as artistry...
...but what were the Four Tops without HDH? What were the Temptations without either Smokey or Norman Whitfield? They may not have been fucking the producers for tracks, but The Tops fell off like a loose Halloween mask after HDH left Motown, and the Temptations were never the same after splitting up with Whitfield, despite a periodic (emphasis on periodic) hit here and there for about a decade afterward.
>
>Diana Ross was indeed stylish, hard-working, and frighteningly
>ruthless in her ambition (thus the fucking of important men
>and sabotage of her groupmates) to be a star...
Diana Ross didn't sabotage her groupmates. Florence Ballard's emotional problems (and Berry Gordy's needling of them; it wasn't Ross that was her real enemy) did her in. And while I'm sure Ross' antics annoyed Mary and Cindy, she did little to directly fuck with them. Truth be told, she did little to fuck with Florence other than what she was commanded to do by Gordy (take all the leads, snitch via telephone, listen when Gordy told her how much of a problem Flo was, etc.)
>
>so the post is about overrated 60's and 70's acts...IMO, The
>Supremes were overrated...
>
>LOL...If these cats can call out P-Funk and Bill Withers, I
>got The Supremes
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