{"id":42063,"date":"2010-08-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/swept-away\/"},"modified":"2010-08-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T00:00:00","slug":"swept-away","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/swept-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Swept Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the massive success of her diana<\/i> LP in 1980, Diana Ross did the unthinkable and parted ways with the Motown label, of which she had risen to become one of its most famous and bankable stars. By that time, Ross was a single mother of three young girls and approaching forty when she realized she wanted to take complete control of her life and career. It didn\u2019t take long for the legendary singer to find a new home, and at the dawn of the \u201880s, Ross signed a very lucrative deal with RCA Records, who agreed to her every demand, and although it would turn out to be a recipe for disaster, things started well enough.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Why Do Fools Fall In Love <\/i>was her first release for the label, and it sold extremely well on the back of several hit singles. 1982\u2019s Silk Electric <\/i>did the same, but the following year\u2019s effort was a complete failure. Ross<\/i> was an eclectic mess that didn\u2019t harbor a melody, let alone a hit single.\u00a0 The devil, it appears, was definitely in the detail, as Ross\u2019 contract automatically made her Executive Producer of her records and she could hire and fire as she pleased. This was a time when it seems Ross\u2019 ego got the better of her and in the way of her better judgment.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

As the head of her own company, Diana Ross was The Boss, after all, and she wielded power like the newly anointed dictator that some likened her with. Such was her want that she hand-picked writers and producers to only provide their services for a couple of songs at a time, so consistency was an issue that dogged her releases. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

But this time around, she got it right and was rewarded with one of her best and biggest selling solo albums. There\u2019s a lot to like about Swept Away<\/i>, her fourteenth solo release, and of all her \u201880s output, this is the one that has stood the test of time superbly. It\u2019s a fantastic balance of pop ballads and R&B dance tracks, which added some much needed spark into Diana\u2019s setlists when out on the road.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The record kicks off with one of her defining moments as she offers a heartfelt reading of the Lionel Richie-penned \u201cMissing You.\u201d It\u2019s a beautiful ballad loaded with all the sentiment a four minute pop song can handle, and although Ross would eventually dedicate the song to Marvin Gaye (the pair could barely tolerate each other), at the time it became one of her most successful singles.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Latin lothario Julio Iglesias met Ross prior to her recording this record and was instantly smitten.\u00a0 He set about seducing her, and when that plan was nixed by the songstress, he settled for friendship and suggested they record a song together. The result, \u201cAll Of You,\u201d was a hit, but it also ended their short-lived friendship because Julio dared to include other duets on his massive crossover disc, 1100 Bel Air Place<\/i>. He had promised Ross that she\u2019d be the only guest on his record, and when she received her copy and discovered this wasn\u2019t the case, it was adios amigo for good. Ross included their collaboration here, but the damage was done, so to speak.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Better still was the Caribbean influenced \u201cTouch By Touch,\u201d which Ross handled with a deft touch, and her inspired arrangement got the job done nicely. A melodramatic cover of Dylan\u2019s \u201cForever Young\u201d is not the wisest choice that Diana has made in the studio, and it\u2019s the only track here that is genuinely bad. The star of the album is, however, the glorious title track, which is not only Ross\u2019 finest ever pop song but one of the decade\u2019s all time greats. \u201cSwept Away\u201d came courtesy of Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates, who wrote the track with Sara Allen and Ross herself. It harbors an insanely catchy pop-rock track that is greatly enhanced by a stellar delivery from Diana, who really went all out on this one, and more of the same would\u2019ve made this album brilliant.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Having said that, Swept Away <\/i>is a solid and consistent record that proves Ross can mix it up with the best \u2013 at least, when she has the right material and people to work with. This one is, as with most of her RCA material, only available on CD out of Japan and costs a small fortune, which is a shame, because it\u2019s definitely worth searching out.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7892],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42063","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-diana-ross","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42063"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}