Why was this not a hit?
5
By Mr. Emory
After nearly 30 years, I still don’t understand why this was not huge. Diana was still a viable commodity in pop music at the time. It had Barry Gibb’s songwriting and producing skills at a still-peak level, and he delivered some very good songs. Diana’s singing is excellent—if you don’t mind some lyrics that might be unintelligible, but still sound great. The title track ROCKS! It’s atmospheric as it can be, it’s hot, and it has a very audible Michael Jackson vocal (at near-duet levels) and Michael Jackson songwriting) at the pinnacle of his Michael Jacksonness. And did I mention it’s HOT! So what if the words are hard to understand? Diana invests them with a lot of meaning anyway. It’s a song about passion and obsession and those qualities come through with or without intelligible lyrics.
There isn’t a bad song on the album. "Chain Reaction" was a hit in other countries. It isn’t necessarily one of my personal favorites, but it is a good song. What I like mostly about it is that it connects Diana’s Supreme past with her (then) very 80s present. It’s fun! The expanded album (officially from FunkyTown Grooves) has a couple of nice remixes that I like better than the more house-y version on DIANA EXTENDED.
Experience is a great ballad and the remix is also quite good. More and More is a very good piano ballad and Diana sings it very, very well.
"Crime of Passion" is another great uptempo number that I like a lot, but it, too, suffers from hard-to-understand lyrics. But again, it doesn’t matter because Diana sings it and it’s arranged in a way that you get plenty of meaning regardless of the words she’s singing. Having originally bought this on LP, I always wished lyrics had been printed on the LP sleeve. Today, I can look them up on the internet. In fact, it wasn’t until after I bought the extended version on CD that I had a clue as to some of the words in “Eaten Alive” and “Crimes of Passion."
“Don’t Give Up on Each Other” closes the original album as I recall, and it is a great song, and it benefits from a dramatic, heart-felt delivery from Diana.
Over the years, I have listened to this album from start to finish many times, and I still enjoy it. The bonus material is great fun, and if you are a Ross fan, a Jackson fan, or a Gibb fan (it is as much a Gibb album in many ways as it is a Ross album), I find it hard to believe that you will not enjoy this album.
Reading over my review, I want to make it clear that the majority of the lyrics here are understandable, but there are some head-scratchers. They have never detracted from my considerable enjoyment of this album.
As casual Diana Ross fan (I grew up hearing the Supremes on the radio, and other than her solo hits, I never really followed her music) until “Upside Down,” this was the first entire Ross album I ever bought. I have since then purchased some of her other albums, and own all of the RCA 80s albums—this is by far my favorite. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
