Released: August 31, 1964
Runtime: 30:00
This is the album that put the formerly no-hit Supremes on the map.
However, to call this an album defies the standard definition of the word. As I’m sure many (if not most) of you fine readers know, pop albums of this era were generally just collections of recent (and even not-so-recent) singles plus any other assorted filler that happened to be in the vaults.
Where Did Our Love Go was one such album, but it happened to have some great hits, some fine filler, and some not-so-fine filler. Those hits were monstrous with three topping the pop charts making the Supremes the first group with three #1 singles from one album. The album itself hit #2 on the pop chart for four weeks and remained on that Billboard chart for nearly two years.
Taken together with the fact that the Supremes (Florence Ballard, Diana Ross, and Mary Wilson) would elegantly appear on the oh so popular Ed Sullivan Show to perform their hits was a milestone for American culture.
After all, this album was released in August 1964, the same month that the bodies of three civil rights workers lynched by the Ku Klux Klan were recovered and that sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer testified on national TV to the beatings she’d gotten for trying to vote in Mississippi.
Ain’t that America.
One Black woman laying bare the misery of Mississippi, while another trio of Black women from a Detroit project were toasted and feted routinely on national TV.
You also gotta remember that American pop music had been kind of sluggish in the early 1960s leaving the field open for the British Invasion led by the Beatles. The Supremes (along with the rest of the Motown Sound) were for awhile the only significant homegrown opposition to those bowl-cut lads from Liverpool.
Anyways, since this album has a total of 12 songs, I’m breaking it down by sides.
SIDE 1
Where Did Our Love Go * Run, Run, Run * Baby Love * When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes * Come See About Me * Long Gone Lover
So, if you read those song titles you probably know that we got our three #1 singles.
Released in June 1964, “Where Did Our Love Go” was the first of those monster tracks to barge its way to #1 holding the top spot for two weeks in August. This is where the timeline gets tricky.
Although “Where Did Our Love Go” didn’t reach #1 until mid-August, it was self-evidently a smash all that summer, so Motown rushed to put together new tracks and an album to cash in. “Baby Love”—a clone of “Where Did Our Love Go”—was one of those quickly recorded new tracks in August. Released as a single in September 1964 it also made its way to #1.
These two songs are basically inseparable, but the original is the better tune. It has more interesting lyrics and the hushed “baby, baby” backing vocals are sultry beside Ross’s somewhat husky lead delivery. “Baby Love” took the backing vocals of “Where Did Our Love Go” and made them front and center. I mean, they were still backing vocals, but now they were perkier… and basically the song title. Anyways, both songs have unforgettable stomping intros courtesy of the Holland-Dozier-Holland’s amazing production.
Those guys knew how to hook you into a song right from the get go.
The third #1 hit, “Come See About Me”, was recorded in July 1964, but was not released as a single until late October. It would snatch the top spot at the end of the year.
It’s my favorite of the mega-smashes. Ballard and Wilson are freed from endlessly repeating “baby baby” and are allowed to croon and swoon the hook.
And the band kicks some suave ass on this one. The intro on this song is the drummer just pounding away, but H-D-H had the neat trick of fading that in, so it sounds like the song is literally approaching you like a dancing army ready to attack.
There’s also this part around the 1:35 mark where the vocals cease. There is no typical Motown sax break, but instead there’s this void where the horns sway in unison and everything kind of pauses… and then Ross breaks it by demandingly singing “Sometime's up, sometime's down”. The up half of that lyric is sang kinda perky, while the down is depressed.
It’s the little things people! “Come See About Me” has all the little things done right.
As for the other songs, “Run, Run, Run” was a flop single (#93 pop) from February 1964. It deserved to flop. It would be okay filler, with some guest backup vocals from the Four Tops, if not for an annoyingly overactive piano. I’m really pissed at that piano cuz it also ruined a solid baritone sax performance too. I love me some bari sax.
“When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes” has an absurdly long title and is the overlooked historical marker on this LP. “Where Did Our Love Go” was the single that made the Supremes superstars, but “Lovelight” is the song that made them viable. Released as a single in late 1963, it was the first song by the Supremes to make a legit impact.
This song brims with high energy from the Funk Brothers (especially the drummer who was cutting it up all the way on this joint) and an absolutely fantastic “rrrrrrrrrrah” yell from the Four Tops as the song hits a breakdown in the middle. The performances from the band and the Supremes are so powerful they break through the clunky title, which turns out to be a poor hook.
In fact, I just realized this isn’t really even a song. Sure it has plenty of lyrics, but this is a jam. The lyrics don’t matter. The vocals really don’t matter either except as just another part of a wall of muscular musical sound. Not to diss the Supremes, but any competent group could have done the vocals on this and the song.. ahem… JAM still woulda come out a beast.
“Lovelight” ultimately hit #23 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and #2 on Cashbox’s R&B chart. (This was the period when Billboard decided it was unnecessary to have an R&B singles chart).
“Long Gone Lover” closes out Side 1. It’s notable for being a relic of the Supremes’ primordial era when people other Diana Ross could get prominent vocal shine. Ross carries most of the lead, but Ballard is allowed to cut loose and belt out the ending. Additionally, the intro has the three Supremes harmonizing in a way you’d never see post-1964. It’s not a great song or anything, but it’s good to have variety.
SONG SCORES
Where Did Our Love Go: 10/10
Run, Run, Run: 4/10
Baby Love: 9/10
When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes: 8/10
Come See About Me: 10/10
Long Gone Lover: 6/10
SIDE 2
I’m Giving You Your Freedom * A Breathtaking Guy * He Means the World To Me * Standing At the Crossroads of Love * Your Kiss of Fire * Ask Any Girl
Definitely the weaker side of the album, but that’ll happen when Side 1 is jammed with three #1 singles.
“A Breathtaking Guy” is the only single from this side, having been released way back in June 1963. It’s actually a really good song penned by Smokey Robinson. Very reminiscent of his contemporary work with Mary Wells. And like “Long Gone Lover” it gives every Supreme some vocal spotlight. I think it shoulda been Top 40 hit, but it flopped (#75).
SIDNOTE: The original title of that song was “A Breath Taking, First Sight Soul Shaking, One Night Love Making, Next Day Heartbreaking Guy”. That is indeed the chorus that all three members take turns singing, but Motown wisely shortened the song title.
“I’m Giving You Your Freedom” was written by H-D-H, but it definitely sounds like them aping Smokey’s calypso-lite work with Mary Wells. Naturally, Smokey had a lock on that sound and this pales next to Wells’ best works and even to “A Breathtaking Guy”. Still a decent outing.
Can’t say the same for “He Means the World To Me”. This song is bad, lackluster, and lazy. Meanwhile “Standing At the Crossroads of Love” and “Your Kiss of Fire” aren’t bad, just forgettable. I’ve listened to them many times and still can’t recall what their hooks are. Pure meh.
After dragging for three straight songs, this album ends on a banger. A banger, I tells ya!
“Ask Any Girl” was horribly sequenced as the album closer, when it should have been the album opener (or at least the side opener). I think Motown recognized they screwed this song over because on the Supremes’ very next album not only would it appear… it would be the album opener.
The dramatic strings, lightly shaking tambourine, and Ross’s nearly a capella delivery make it sound like a classic heartbreaking Hollywood romance is beginning. It’s a pure delight that only gets better as the song just builds and builds. Ballard and Wilson work “oohs” and “la la las” for much more than you’d think they could ever be worth.
This is the kind of sweet stomping Motown soul that presaged the dance music flooding discos a decade later.
You can easily imagine H-D-H being able to stretch this beauty out to five or six minutes of awesomeness. If given the opportunity. But mid-1960s pop and soul strictures mandated a three-minute max on song length.
Hell, listen to “Ask Any Girl” and then Donna Summer’s dance-ballad numbers like “Last Dance” and you can see the musical DNA. Whereas the Supremes were restricted to three minutes, Donna got eight minutes to tear it up.
Pity.
SONG SCORES
I’m Giving You Your Freedom: 6/10
A Breathtaking Guy: 8/10
He Means the World To Me: 3/10
Standing At the Crossroads of Love: 4/10
Your Kiss of Fire: 4/10
Ask Any Girl: 9/10
ALBUM GRADE: B
Four of the songs are forgettable, two are pleasant, three are classics, and three are beyond classics having attained the status of cultural ubiquity.
The highs are so high, but you can’t ignore those lows.
Still, very much an album worth listening to, if you haven’t before. It’s genuinely good and historically significant. A group of Black women had the fourth-best selling album of 1964 and were the first music act period. to land three #1 pop singles off of one album.
The Supremes’ next LP would put this one to shame, took no prisoners, and should be in the discussion for best pop music album of the 1960s.