I still wouldn’t go so far as to say I really liked it, but this is another definite improvement on the original, and if these Mary Wells covers were proving to be chart poison for Brenda, well, on this evidence she was at least getting rather better at doing them. (5)
If nobody will be confusing this for a masterpiece any time soon, nonetheless I much prefer this version to the original; finally the song makes sense. Not as a choice of single, mind you. (6)
Pretty much the very definition of Temptations album filler, a pleasant but largely pointless retouching of a song that didn’t have anything wrong with it in the first place. (5)
Too much of a glorious mess to have been a huge hit on original release, but it’s both insanely ambitious and impressively executed, and it adds up to yet another excellent side in this magnificent run. (8)
A listener at the end of 1964 might well have wondered, with good reason, whether the Miracles really had a place in Motown’s brave new world of corporate greed and thundering cash registers. This pair of sides not only put such doubts to rest, but showed the Miracles to be at the vanguard of the company’s very best acts. Quite exceptional stuff. (8)
At a Q&A event in a high school classroom later in the year, Berry Gordy was asked by one of the students: “How do you find guys like Smokey Robinson?” His reply was curt: “You don’t find guys like Smokey Robinson.” (9)
I love Marvin Gaye. Love him. As you’ll see later, he’s probably my favourite Motown artist. But this – this beautifully-formed little pop record – is wrong, and I’d be lying to myself – and undoing the entire purpose of this blog – if I didn’t call him and Smokey out for it. (5)
I can appreciate how skilfully it’s been made, but I get no emotional connection from it, it doesn’t move me, and ultimately that’s what I want from a pop record, no matter how astonishing the lead vocals are. (5)
Plenty of respected judges, including commenters on this very site, have said they prefer Brenda’s version to Mary’s; I can’t help but wonder how I’d feel if I’d heard the two versions the “right” way round too, because – for me – this one just isn’t a patch on that one. (6)
If My Girl isn’t in your fifty top Motown tunes, I fear nothing can be done for you. (10)
After the bland rock-out blind alley of the A-side, it’s just good to hear the Miracles back on something like their usual form. (7)
Motown Junkies 