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Feb 11, 2025 Web Exclusive By Frank Valish

The Supremes’ 14th album, 1968’s Reflections, represents several firsts for the group. It was first to be billed under its new moniker, asserting Diana Ross’ dominance by placing her name before the group’s. It was the first with Cindy Birdsong, who replaced founding member Florence Ballard. It was also the first to include self-penned liner notes by Ross on the back sleeve, notes which find her reflecting on her journey from Detroit poverty to Motown stardom. The album also, coincidentally, represents one last. It was the last Supremes album to boast songwriting and production from the infamous Holland-Dozier-Holland trio.

Reissued here on 140 gram vinyl, with original front and back cover artwork, Reflections settles in nicely with The Supremes’ iconic discography. The title track, a Holland-Dozier-Holland production, is the star here, as immediate and melodically effective as anything in The Supremes’ catalog. The song is spectacular, but being the opener on Side 1, the unintended consequence is that it makes the rest of the songs on the side, even the other terrific Holland-Dozier-Holland products, “Forever Came Today,” “I Can’t Make It Alone,” and “In and Out of Love,” pale in comparison (although the jumpy, jazzy melody of “In and Out of Love” comes the closest to the title track in terms of primacy). “Reflections” is the tune that stays in your head, demanding repeated listens.

Side 2 begins with Bacharach and David’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” which is politely arranged and nice enough but hardly revolutionary. Jimmy Webb’s “Up, Up and Away,” previously recorded by The 5th Dimension, is as trite as it was when The 5th Dimension did it. After these, Holland-Dozier-Holland’s “Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)” soars, and “Misery Makes Its Home In My Heart,” co-written by Smokey Robinson and delightful in its melodic simplicity and a nice change of pace, albeit a slight one, from the Holland-Dozier-Holland tunes.

By the group’s next album, Love Child, released later that same year, Diana Ross & The Supremes fully committed to a Holland-Dozier-Holland-less left turn and a grittier sound. Of course, Ross would soon depart for greener solo pastures. Reflections was the group in limbo. But boy does that title track shine. (www.elemental-music.com)

Author rating: 6.5/10