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Spanning March 1966 to October 1968, these twenty singles – sequenced in chronological order – define high pop intensity. They begin when Tamla was entering its imperial phase: by early 1966, the Supremes were in the middle of their astonishing run of eleven number ones. The Temptations, the Miracles, the Four Tops were all established as top-flight pop acts. The point had been made. The template was there: the groove was locked. Everyone was on a roll. It was time to fuck with the formula, to make art as well as commerce.

Almost all of these songs extend and deepen Tamla’s standard romantic tropes. They dwell in the shadows of love, the moments when the affair becomes obsessive, when pleasure turns to addiction: the monkey on the back. The men are helpless, demasculated – ‘I’m not half the man I used to be’. “The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game”, “Love Is Here But And Now You’re Gone”, “The Love I Saw in You Is Just A Mirage”: these are convoluted psychological creations, full of blind alleys and unresolved sighs.

These are the topics typified by the genre that Dave Godin eloquently defined as Deep Soul: certainly, these complex, often adult, songs admit a much wider range of human emotion than most white pop of the period. However, they are not set to slow build, torchy settings: these are, in the main, uptempo dance records, garnished with all the trickery of the period. Is that an oscillator on “Reflections”? A harpischord on “Take Me In Your Arms and Love Me”? An echo of Dylan in the way that Levi Stubbs sings ‘they pretend to be my friend’?

Above all, these records were the product of success. After 1967, that world-beating confidence was being eroded. 1968 was a bitter year: the worsening situation in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Within Motown, the golden hit makers Holland Dozier Holland had left after a bitter contractual wrangle. There were new forms of black dance music, typified by Sly and the Family Stone’s radical deconstructions. In the face of funk and social consciousness, classic Motown romanticism looked passe.

In November 1968, Gordy issued the Temptations’ “Cloud Nine” to great acclaim in the US: the new era had begun. But this Sly-inflected epic wasn’t released in the UK until summer 1969, (check) as Britain remained in thrall to the imperial Motown era. During that year, many classics from 1965-67 were pop hits for the first time: “Get Ready”, “(I’m A) Road Runner”, “Tracks of My Tears”. At the same time, obsessive fans turned their back on funk in the first stirrings of the cult that Dave Godin, in June 1970, termed Northern Soul.

For a bunch of quick-turnover, machine-tooled items of mass production, these records have proved surprisingly enduring. Maybe it’s not so surprising. At its best, pop music deep mines emotion, longing, passion – all those awkward parts of the human psyche for which there are still, few road maps. Fusing experimentation, pop discipline and naked melodrama, these wise, complex records were pop hits, dance hall classics, and big news on the subterranean gay scene of the 60′s. They still have the power to pull you into their world.

Dive deep into the shadows of love: you might find a strange comfort there.

TRACK BY TRACK BREAKDOWN:

1: Marvin Gaye, One More Heartache US #20

Built around Marv Tarplin’s stinging guitar, this March 1966 hit continued the run of great mid sixties collaborations between Gaye, Tarplin and Smokey Robinson. More desperate than either “I’ll Be Doggone” and “Ain’t That Peculiar”, Gaye’s voice rushes against the insistent groove in a kind of existential terror: ‘my heart is carrying such a heavy load/ one more ache would break it’.

2: The Temptations, Ain’t Too Proud To Beg US #13, UK #21

Producer and co-writer Norman Whitfield coaxed a passionate, rough vocal out of the Tempts’ then lead singer, David Ruffin, who comes right out of the gate on this pleading classic. The lyric’s admission of vulnerability – ‘I’ve heard a crying man is half a man’ – is punctuated by a descending bass line before the chorus resolves the dilemma: there is no shame in men showing their emotions.

3: The Supremes, You Keep Me Hangin’ On US #1 UK #8

Diana Ross’ voice really cuts through on this relentless tale of dark obsession. From the morse-code intro in, this justly celebrated song features Holland-Dozier-Holland at the height of their game, with its tricksy turns and surprising drop-outs. The back up from Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson is fantastic, and the relentless groove tells the story: there will be no escape.

4: The Temptations, (I Know) I’m Losing You US #8, UK #19

Heralded by an insistent guitar figure and peppered with bongos, this angry song features another extraordinary vocal performance from David Ruffin and wild back-ups from the Temptations. It’s all about that nightmare moment of intimate realisation: ‘When I look into your eyes/ A reflection of a face I see/ I’m hurt, downhearted and worried, girl/ Because that face doesn’t belong to me’.

5: The Four Tops, Standing In The Shadows Of Love US #6, UK #6

This Holland-Dozier-Holland follow-up to the titanic “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” slightly strains for effect, but the pre-chorus bongo breakdown and Levi Stubbs’ sheer ebullience make you forget about the hint of formula in the verse melody. The title and lyrical concept is spot-on, and the group relish their places shadows so much that H-D-H would take them there again during 1967.

6: Chris Clark, Love’s Gone Bad

An almost brutally curt – just over two and a quarter minutes – but soulful tale of disillusion and hurt from one of Motown’s few white acts: the vastly underrated Chris Clark. ‘Bad taste in my mouth/ From these bitter tears’, she spits, as she runs through her mid sixties blues: Black crows portend her future: a life without love.

7: The Marvelettes, The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game US #13

Thinking it too ‘jazzy’, Motown nearly canned this definitive parable of the hunter losing control: a scenario particularly applicable to the gay men who exalted this wonderful song – one of Smokey’s most seductive and serpentine creations. The sparse production, dominated by a wistful harmonica, showcases an intimate, breathy vocal by Gladys Horton that succeeds in stopping time. Oh yeah!

8: The Supremes, Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone US #1, UK #17

Melodrama in excelsis, as Holland-Dozier-Holland pass through their imperial stage into a baroque aesthetic that threatens the dissolution to come. For such a big hit, this is a very strange record. Is that a chorus or a verse that leads into the whispering raps? But La Ross gets right into her victim role: ‘my heart cries out for your touch/ But you’re not there/ And the lonely cry fades into the air – uh’.

9: The Miracles, The Love I Saw In You Is Just A Mirage US #20

Things ain’t quite the same in Smokeyworld either. Sweetened with a celeste, the sinuous melody of this tearjerker is matched by some of Robinson’s most perfect similes and at least one outrageous rhyme: camouflage/ mirage. Plus he dares to play around with one of R&B’s oldest lyrical tropes: ‘now all that’s left/ Are lipstick traces/ From the kisses you only pretended to feel’.

10: R. Dean Taylor, There’s A Ghost In My House UK #3 (1974)

Back to 4/4 with this relentless stomper from Motown’s other white act of the period. Propelled by some ferocious snare rolls, Taylor starts in overdrive and doesn’t let up. By the time that the footsteps on the stairs kick in during the choruses, you begin to think that being this haunted might be some kind of fun. The public agreed, pushing this seven year old track into the British top three in early 1974.

11: The Four Tops, Bernadette US #4, UK #8

Holland Dozier Holland put gloom on hold for this hymn to the adored female in early 1967. However nothing was quite so simple by this stage, and Levi Stubbs’ pleading vocal – hinting at the insecurity behind the joy – is matched by some truly inspired background harmonies during the verses. Is there also not something dark about his demand: ‘so whatever you do Bernadette, keep on loving me’.

12: Gladys Knight And The Pips, Take Me In Your Arms And Love Me UK #13

With its burlesque bounce and slow, slow build, this is nothing less than aural seduction on a grand scale. With its harpsichord, clever breaks, and perfect drumming, ‘Take Me In Your Arms and Love Me’ takes you through the whole scenario, until by the end, Knight is there: ‘Any second now, I’ll explode’, she moans, and you believe her.

13: Stevie Wonder, I Was Made To Love Her US #2, UK #5

A straight rave from start to finish. Wonder is so excited that he can barely wait to get each word out: you can hear his gasps for breath as he testifies. And it builds and builds, until all Stevie can do is wail above the patented Motown symphony strings, guitars and back up vocals.

14: The Supremes, Reflections US #2, UK #5

This was a major summer 1967 statement, with its oscillator, moody tempo, and mind-melting lyrics. La Ross is still in victim mode, but now she’s looking through the mirror of lost time, trapped in a world that’s a distorted reality. Fantastic psych-kitsch, with an intriguing mis-pronounciation: ‘through the Harlow of my tears’.

15: The Four Tops, You Keep Running Away US #19, UK #26

There’s no messing around in this climactic slice of H-D-H gloom: a great snare roll rips straight into Levi Stubbs singing his heart out. The template is already there – spooky background vocals, definitive drumming, and dark, obsessive lyrics – but this time the mesh is wound so tight that, by the end, both the group and their composers have arrived at some strange, bitter place.

16: The Miracles, I Second That Emotion US #4, UK #27

Smokey’s direct love plea to a hesitant female is couched with all his usual equivocations and complexities – ‘a taste of honey is worse than none at all’ – but the subtle swing of the arrangement and Smokey’s testifying make you feel that, after all, he will succeed. Perhaps it was this upbeat feel that made the record the Miracles’ second biggest sixties hit.

17: Martha And The Vandellas, Honey Chile US #11, UK #30

A down-home theme marks this early 1968 return to classic Motown verities. Psychedelia is shrugged off as Martha Reeves delineates exactly how her honey chile is deficient in almost every respect. She can’t let go but can see the time when she can shake her addiction: the strength in her voice makes you believe she’ll get there.

18: The Temptations, I Wish It Would Rain US #4, UK #45

Major minor-chord moodiness from the classic Temptations: seagulls and cloudbursts punctuate David Ruffin’s wordless moans and passionate pleas for the universe to match his desperate emotional state. He’s not just being cosmic: raindrops will hide his tears, and so save his pride. Within a few months, Ruffin would be gone, and the Temptations would have more on their mind than romance.

19: R. Dean Taylor, Gotta See Jane UK #12

Squealing tyres, backwards tapes and heavily distorted vocals give a psych touch to the first verse of this relentless song: then the drums kick in and Taylor’s off, running with the winds at 100 mph. The faster he drives the less sure he is of whether she will take him back. And there’s a hint of counter-culture drop-out: ‘The frantic pace/ The constant chase/ to win the race turned my heart cold inside’.

20: Martha & Vandellas, I Can’t Dance To That Music You’re Playing

Almost anachronistic on its release, but what a stormer! A piano, bass and hi-hat fanfare introduces one of Martha’s greatest vocals and an arrangement based around the Vandellas’ high register harmonies in the chorus. Dig the way that the saxophone that roars out of the central break sounds like the group in full flight. Moral: ladies, do not date musicians.

Posted on September 23, 2008 at 8:00 pm