Released: November 3, 1969
This album can go straight to hell.
ALBUM GRADE: F-
Okay, here’s a more substantial summation.
Since the previous Supremes’ album, Let the Sunshine In, was a hot mess, Berry Gordy postponed plans for Diana Ross to go solo. Can’t have Diana go solo on the strength of a #31 pop smash!
Yes, that was sarcasm.
As Let the Sunshine In disappointed, Ross went into the studio and recorded “Someday We’ll Be Together” with more backup singers who, as usual by this point, were not Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong.
The song was intended to be Ross’s first solo single, but instead it became the Supremes’ last single with Diana Ross.
Motown may have been neglecting the Supremes, but those bastards knew how commercialize a situation. The writing was on the wall that Ross was leaving the group and the ephemeral longing of the song made it perfect for the moment.
It reached #1 on the pop chart in late 1969 making it the last chart-topper of the 1960s. That sense of nostalgia that comes when a decade closes probably helped “Someday” rise as high as it did. Also just the ability of any listener to interpret the song in their own personal way.
Sure the lyrics are explicitly about a lovers’ relationship, but listeners can construct their own meaning.
It could be about a lost love. A lost child. A lost soldier. On and on and on.
And that’s all there is good to say about this album.
“Someday We’ll Be Together” (a 7) is literally the only song worth damn on this hot piece of trash.
I cannot express how much I loathe this album.
At least it marked the end of the line for Diana Ross and “The Supremes”.
The next Supremes album would have a new lead singer and the ladies would be back in fine form working as a group once more instead of being a product.
Oh happy day.