601. The Contours: “Searching For A Girl”
Not bad or offensive, it’s just sort of there. A fun but forgettable bit of filler. (4)
Category Archives: The Contours
600. The Contours: “First I Look At The Purse”
Unexpectedly, it turns out Smokey, and Motown, needed the Contours to exist: not as a link to the past, but as an outlet for silly ideas, as an expression of physical energy, as a pressure valve. And this, daft as it is, is just buckets of fun. (7)
510. The Contours: “That Day When She Needed Me”
Completely out of character for the group – if you were asked to identify these guys on sound alone, “the Contours” would be the absolute last answer you’d give – but no worse for it. Nice surprises are the best kind of surprises, after all. (7)
509. The Contours: “Can You Jerk Like Me”
I’ve given it many, many listens and I still don’t know what to make of it, or where it fits into the Contours’ story. Your mileage may vary. Mine certainly does. (5)
396. The Contours: “I’ll Stand By You”
Really rather pretty, and absolutely fine as far as it goes, even if it only goes halfway to where it really needs to get to. (6)
395. The Contours: “Can You Do It”
Never a masterpiece, but a corking dance rocker, very rough around the edges but definitely alive; a hint of a Contours we never really got to see, the Contours their live shows always presented to wowed audiences.
310. The Contours: “You Get Ugly”
This isn’t just awful on its own terms, as I’d previously believed to be the case, but it turns out it’s also a craven attempt to sponge off another record’s success, the sort of thing I thought Motown had rather grown out of by this point in history. I never learn.
309. The Contours: “Pa (I Need A Car)”
I’d be a massive hypocrite if, having berated the Contours for doing the same thing over and over again, I didn’t at least give them credit for trying something new. I just wish it had turned out a bit… better, that’s all. (5)
284. The Contours: “It Must Be Love”
Completely out of nowhere, this has to be considered one of the best records the early Contours ever made, and it should have become a significant hit single in its own right. (8)
283. The Contours: “Don’t Let Her Be Your Baby”
It’s not a terrible record – it shares a lot of the rhythm and danceability of Do You Love Me – but it is mean-spirited, cynical and completely pointless. (2)
244. The Contours: “You Better Get In Line”
Thin, weak, bored-sounding “dance music” that – fatally – doesn’t ever make you want to get up and dance, this is both an artistic misfire and a commercial misjudgment. (3)
