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Motown Junkies

~ because it's what's in the grooves that counts

Motown Junkies

Category Archives: The Marvelettes

667. The Marvelettes: “Anything You Wanna Do”

April 13, 2014

Coming up in the middle of a run of greatness, given the heights we’ve just crested, well, to call a record pretty stupid but quite good anyway somehow feels even harsher than usual. But here we are. (4)

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666. The Marvelettes: “Don’t Mess With Bill”

April 2, 2014

We’ve never had cause to doubt the Marvelettes’ quality before, but now they’re paired with the right producer, they’ve got a part to play in the Motown story too, a part that finally makes sense; Don’t Mess With Bill is almost something like a rebirth, the start of the Marvelettes’ magnificent second act, and its brilliance is cause for much celebration.

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613. The Marvelettes: “Your Cheating Ways”

May 16, 2013

Strangely, considering this isn’t brilliant – and that it could easily have been recorded a year before by someone else without anyone batting an eyelid – Your Cheating Ways perhaps offered unwitting fans more of a clue to the Marvelettes’ future sound than first realised. (6)

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612. The Marvelettes: “Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead”

May 7, 2013

I can’t necessarily imagine anyone picking it out as one of their all-time favourites (though no doubt there’ll be some in the comments section!), but there’s really very little wrong with it; for me it just doesn’t go quite far enough, doesn’t scrape the sky in the way it keeps threatening. Still, on a good day, there’s little to touch it. (7)

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574. The Marvelettes: “No Time For Tears”

January 30, 2013

Whatever their style, the Marvelettes have very, very few duff records in their future, something underlined by this supposedly throwaway B-side, an unexpected little treat. (7)

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573. The Marvelettes: “I’ll Keep Holding On”

January 26, 2013

It feels effortless, like so many of the very best Motown records do; the Marvelettes were growing up alongside Motown itself, and it’s reassuring to find they were still able to mix it right at the forefront, to match whatever their peers were doing. (8)

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494. The Marvelettes: “A Need For Love”

June 18, 2012

It’ll never be mistaken for a prime bit of classic Marvelettes, and it’s not in the same league as the A-side, but with these girls it’s always good to hear more – and in the absence of an album, well, it’s nice to catch up on what they’d been up to. (5)

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493. The Marvelettes: “Too Many Fish In The Sea”

June 16, 2012

Probably the best-sounding Marvelettes single to date, certainly the most “grown up”, and – again – excellent. (8)

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432. The Marvelettes: “A Little Bit Of Sympathy, A Little Bit Of Love”

November 6, 2011

Artless and joyless, this is one of the weakest records the Marvelettes ever released, especially on a 45, and the song should never have left the drawing board. (2)

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431. The Marvelettes: “You’re My Remedy”

November 2, 2011

Probably the Marvelettes’ best single in two years, even if I’m not sure quite how it managed to be so (and I’m not convinced they did either). Still, it’s hard to argue with results like these. (8)

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380. The Marvelettes: “Goddess Of Love”

June 23, 2011

A really good little record, small in scale but beautifully formed. (7)

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Motown Junkies

This is Motown Junkies, an unofficial guide to every Motown single ever released, or planned for release, on every US Motown label (or via Tamla Motown in the UK), featuring reviews of each A-side and B-side in chronological order. New reviews appear every couple of days.

Think of it as an unauthorised track-by-track companion to the magnificent The Complete Motown Singles CD box sets, and beyond, with marks out of ten.

I'm NOT Paul Nixon.

FURTHER INFORMATION

More info about the blog (and me) can be found here. If you want to leave a comment on any review, please feel free to do so - all feedback, corrections, disagreements and encouragements gratefully received. If you've something you'd rather not say in public, I can be contacted at fosse8 at gmail dot com.

(Oh, and if you arrived here looking for the Motown Junkies music group, they're nothing to do with me, I'm afraid - but they are very nice people, and they can be found at www.motownjunkies.com instead.)

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You can jump straight to the full list of reviews so far in the Master Index, or browse by label instead.

If you're looking for something a bit more specific, you can click an artist's name in the "Artist" menu at the top of the screen to see a little biography and all the reviews we've done for them so far. Only people whose records I've already discussed appear there at the moment - more names will be added to the lists all the time as I work my way through Motown's history, so do keep checking back!

Alternatively, the front page displays excerpts from the most recent reviews, and on the right hand side of the screen you'll see a list of the most recent entries and also a sampling of the most popular entries from the last 48 hours, as well as the latest comments left by visitors.

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This is an unofficial site, and is not affiliated in any way with Universal Motown, Hip-O Select or any of the artists referred to in the blog.

Where indicated, label scan images appear by kind permission of Lars "LG" Nilsson (as originally prepared for the Complete Motown Singles series).

Digital images courtesy of Gordon Frewin are supplied for use at motownjunkies.co.uk by arrangement. All applicable rights reserved. No unauthorised republication is permitted.

Many label images were kindly provided by Robb Klein, together with invaluable historical research.

All text © Motown Junkies, 2009-19. All rights reserved.

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