This is the first Supremes album in two years I haven't bought on first sight. And in the past I've been well-rewarded for my impetuousness: no bad burns. The women just seem to keep giving this magnanimous Pavlovian an encouraging pat up top each and every time. But this—"Produced and Arranged by Jimmy Webb," the cover reads, like the hypothesis of an experiment—this was putting a definite strain on my largesse.

But of course I was remembering the Jimmy Webb who in a more overachieving era ran folks like Richard Harris through their musical paces, "MacArthur Park" and all. It was flagrant disregard for the rave reviews of Webb's own more recent albums. I should have better taken some cues from the liner photos: images of this smiling, bespectacled freak, adjusting headphones with the last—the classic—embodiment of all the female groups. Would the audible results take the form of some sort of musical subversion, brought about by a young man, old enough to remember "Baby Love," loose at last in those mythical studios?

I finally broke down. Bought the album. And while it won't cause a showdown with the CIA, the "subversion," for want of an alternate term, usually works just fine. Webb has applied his distinct musical orientation to his own conception of the Supremes. The songs, the definite majority that are on target, superbly fit the image they make for themselves. "5:30 Plane" strikes one immediately with its totally contemporary feel: The ambience of a young woman, very possibly a Supreme at that, and her on-and-off affair, played out in the serpentine milieus of freeway on-ramps, airport terminals, L.A. townhouses: "I don't know what you are gonna do/But I decided I can't make it on my own/I didn't want to be here, baby, when you got home/Sittin' alone." Musically, it works like Bacharach's "Don't Make Me Over" did for Dionne Warwicke, with the steady R&B undercurrents effectively diluting the potentially deadly strings. Jean Terrell sounds much like Warwicke in her early days too: She sings with an unlearned authority. But when this balance by contrast wavers, as it does on most of the rest of the side, the overwrought violins become boring. The effect is defused. That sort of miscalculation overpowers "When Can Brown Begin," complicating a good song full of Webb's succinct, accessible imagery, which cries out for simpler handling. Bobby Lewis' classic "Tossin' and Turnin'" easily accomplishes what "Brown" lacks. It's an inspired choice, outrageous, concisely executed, plainly soulful.

Side two is almost flawless. Joni Mitchell's "All I Want" is by far the best cut on the album. It's quintessential black rock, erasing those worried demarcation lines between two genres completely. Merry Clayton's approach comes to mind, but the fusion here is somehow more complete than that. Everything, the basic Motown drive, the fragile alliteration of Joni's phrasing, delivered scattily and speedily but intact, the horn riffs borrowed from "Up Up and Away"—everything's just in place. Webb's "Once in the Morning" is almost as good, with its opener, "I was lying in state on my analyst's couch." It's taken in a country vein, with Webb copping a chorus or two, and there's not the least incongruity to it. Even Nilsson's ultra-romantic "Paradise," which sounds like a parody of a rosy-sunset flick theme, is masterful, lovely and a trifle tongue-in-cheek at the same time. The strings literally swirl and the background is some kind of gospel-opera.

This may be strange territory for unaware Supremes habitudes. But for anyone who wants to see the barriers in modern popular music broken down, he needn't look further than this album. Be forewarned. (RS 125)

MARK VINING