CoronaVinyl Day 96 (Band with Number in the Name): Greatest Hits by The Four Tops

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Unfortunately, I had to return from vacation, but it's not all seven rooms of gloom, though, because my return means I get to continue with our (now not so) little record-a-day experiment.  Today's CoronaVinyl category is "band with number in the name."  When taken literally, it could be read to mean only bands that have the word "number" in their name, but I assure you, that was not my intent and would produce absurd results.  

Over the years, many bands have had numbers in their name, but few of those numbered groups have had the success that the Four Tops had.  I have their 1967 Greatest Hits album, which featured twelve of the group's hits up to that point.  It's kind of crazy that they put out a greatest hits album after essentially only putting out music for less than three years, but that speaks to the level of their and Motown's success in the mid '60s.

The legendary Motown songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote ten of the twelve songs on the album, and you'll recognize just about every song on the album.  The songs are fantastic, and like pretty much all Motown songs from the '60s, just so easy to listen to.  It was pop music at its finest, written by some of the best who ever put pen to music.  The twelve songs were the group's first twelve singles released in the U.S., and the lowest-charting of the twelve still reached #45 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Ten songs reached the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, including five Top 10s and two #1s.  Nine of the songs also reached the Top 10 of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two #1s.

The Four Tops continued their success throughout the late '60s and early '70s, even after leaving Motown in 1972, but then kind of faded away as the '70s went on, though they did have two Top 40 hits in the '80s -- "When She Was My Girl," which hit #11 in 1981, and "Indestructible," a collaboration with Smokey Robinson that hit #35 in 1988.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Reach Out I'll Be There"
The group's second #1 hit in the U.S., "Reach Out I'll Be There" also hit #1 on the UK pop chart, becoming the second Motown song to do that.  It's a rollercoaster of emotion, going from a brooding minor key in the verses to a major key in the choruses.  The song was purposely written at the outskirts of lead singer Levi Stubbs's range, so that he sounded more pained when he sang it.  It worked, and the song became the group's second #1 hit in the U.S., and it also hit #1 on the UK pop chart, becoming the second Motown song to do go to #1 in Great Britain.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Bernadette"
I think "Bernadette" is my favorite song by The Four Tops.  It's another impassioned vocal performance by Stubbs, as he sings about outkicking his coverage.  He sings to Bernadette, explaining his undying love for her, even as she is coveted by every other man who sets eyes on her.  It straddles the line between a love song and begging a woman to stay with you.  About 20 seconds before the end of the song, there is a false ending, as the music fades, before Stubbs screams "Bernadette!" and then reiterates to her how much she means to him.  If she didn't stay with him, it's probably because he came on a little strong.