(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please refer down below)
The Supremes - "You Keep Me Hangin' On"
Hit Number 1: November 19, 1966
Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks
The Supremes' greatness was falling, but they weren't releasing bad music just yet. In fact, they still had yet to release their most covered song to date. "You Keep Me Hangin' On" is somehow, out of all their songs, the one that seems to be the most "coverable", as there is many versions of this song. Written by the all-too-familiar team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, the song is pretty similar to "You Can't Hurry Love", as it uses more R&B, instead of that "Motown sound" that had made them so popular to begin with. In fact, other groups around the same time were adopting that sound, and it was part of what the public wanted in the mid-60s. But now as we reach the end of 1966, that sound was all but dead. So, the Supremes turned to this sound for the time being. It worked well for them.
Not only is "You Keep Me Hangin' On" different from so many of the other Supremes' hits that came before it, but it's very different lyrically. It's a pretty snappy song, about a girl who had dumped by this guy, but the guy still wants to be friends. The girl, however, wants nothing to do with him, because just seeing him makes her upset about the breakup. All of the previous Supremes #1 hits were more sweet in nature, and even if it was about heartache, the narrator only sang about how she still wanted that guy back, and wished they could fix whatever was wrong with their relationship. Nope, the girl in "You Keep Me Hangin' On" is desperate to move on, and is longing to distance herself from this guy and find someone new. It's a classic, sharp approach that a lot of people would have when dumped by someone.
There's a few cool little things going on in "You Keep Me Hangin' On" that I like. The thing that I like the most is the Morse code sound effect that the lead guitar has, which was said to be inspired by Lamont Dozier hearing a similar sound before a news announcement on the radio. Diana Ross' vocals were multi-tracked, which is when you record two separate takes of something, and combine them together. That makes for a pretty cool sound, and was a very popular technique at that time, though admittedly, I prefer Ross' voice not being tampered with at all. She has a voice that studio dudes should leave alone. It's said that the guitars and the drums were also multi-tracked, but that's not as easy to tell. I think the song is pretty good, but there seems to be some unnecessary studio work being done. It also doesn't help that I'm much more partial to the Supremes' earlier hits. But for right now, they were still putting out quality songs that I do still like. Not only will we see the Supremes again in this blog, but we'll also see this song pop up again, after Kim Wilde brought it back to #1 in 1987.
GRADE: 7/10
SONGS REFERENCED:
The Supremes - "You Can't Hurry Love"
MY INSPIRATION / MORE INFORMATION:
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