THE SUPREMES - “Baby Love”
(21st November 1964)
At the start of this record - though maybe it was mixed in years later - there’s a lovely bit of stereo panning where a troupe of polite feet tap across your head from right to left and then quickly back. What images does it summon? Fuzzy TV pictures of women in formation, a tidy, untouchable trio swaying and clapping in perfect order. “Baby Love” still irresistibly provokes movement - but neat, clipped, upper-body movement. It acquiesces mildly to Motown’s rhythmic grid, never challenging it and just as crucially never really using it to build momentum. There’s a hint of drive in the gradual crescendo on the sax break but “Baby Love” is still the most inert of the big Supremes hits.
Does that mean it’s a bad record? God no, it’s a fantastic record. In terms of the drama and energy of its stablemates “Baby Love” falls flat but it’s hard to think of many other hit records so absolutely committed to simple gorgeousness. In fact I have only just realised - on, what, my 100th listen? - that the story in “Baby Love” is one of romantic crisis, so to the track’s other failures we must add a total inability to reflect its own lyrics. And does that matter? Not at all - a single coo dispels the heaviest doubt. “Baby Love” is a gambol, a delight, a chiming wonder, a focused pursuit of prettiness centered on Diana Ross who turns out to be a professional and a performer and one who knows precisely how much sugar you need to ice a cake. 8
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Joe Williams on August 31st, 2005
That stereo effect isn’t on the original, must be a remixed version you heard. Great record, though you’re right that there are much finer Supremes moments. ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ is my personal favourite.
Lena on October 14th, 2006
I once brought the Hitsville USA compilation home to play for my parents and this was the only song my father didn’t like - too many ‘baby’s - and I agree with him. I like the Supremes when they are less sugary, as in “Stop In the Name of Love” or “You Keep Me Hanging On”…
blount on October 14th, 2006
is this their horniest record? supremes obv did sweeping dramatic anguish well - is this their biggest (only?) hit that’s less ‘plz to stop hurting me’ and more ‘plz to start hurting me’?
Billy Smart on July 21st, 2008
TOTP Watch: The performance of this survives (just about… it’s the worst print of any pop performance that I’ve ever seen!). It comes from the edition transmitted on the 8th of October 1964. The Supremes also performed ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’. Also in the studio that week were; Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers, Matt Monro, Sandie Shaw. The host was Pete Murray.
We owe the survival of this clip to the first few minutes of this edition being found at the end of a tape of the BBC’s 1964 Election coverage!
FT's SteveIson on July 22nd, 2008
My favourite bit is that gorgeous piano intro,full of intrigue and wonder..I always wish it’d been repeated later..