For this new Supremes album, producer Smokey Robinson has not only adapted himself to the group's established lighter-than-air style but perfected it, whipping up a batch of songs that you can tumble into like a cloud of cotton candy: pastel fluff, pure sugar, yet rarely sticky. Like Bacharach-David's recent work with Dionne Warwicke–and Dionne and Floy Joy are much alike–there is little "substance" here, but who expects cotton candy to be anything but sweet?

Smokey has captured the essence of the Supremes' sweetness, zeroed in on it and cut out everything else. Those sexy, whispery voices (Marilyn Monroe sang that way) are given a depth that is at times dizzying. People don't sound like that in real life, but then the Supremes are pop mythic figures and Smokey has created perhaps the ultimate expression of that myth through the sort of distillation and perfection of their style that would have been impossible while that style was still developing. He has summed the group up in an album that is neither as great nor as dismal as they've ever been, but catches them at some irresistible dead center only Smokey could have sustained for two whole sides.

The material, all of it by Robinson, is very like the song he wrote for the Supremes back in 1963, "Breathtaking Guy" (the chorus: "Are you just a breathtaking/earth-, side-, soul - shaking / one night love-making/next day heartbreaking - guy?"): Light - weight, clever, unashamedly pop. Only now, inevitably, everyone's a little more self-conscious and the old, unpretentious "Breathtaking Guy" has become a forced, too-cute "Floy Joy."

"Floy Joy" is the only really dull song here, but I sing it to myself on the street, so it's gotten to me in spite of my critical self. The Supremes have always managed to bypass my Better Judgment and I love them for it–don't the best pop groups shoot right through critical barriers and intellectual defenses? That still doesn't make "Floy Joy" a good song, only a catchy, enjoyable one and since everything here is to one degree or another catchy and enjoyable, "Floy Joy" can be discarded for the moment in favor of the other, better cuts.

"A Heart Like Mine," in spite of the electronic jiggles in the present production, sounds like classic Motown or at least classic Smokey Robinson: mournful but sweet, uncomplicated and full of girls going ooo-ooo in the background. In fact, the song was included on the Miracles first album (Hi! We're the Miracles) and even in this stylish version probably wouldn't have been out of place on the Supremes debut LP.

"Precious Little Things" also has a timeless feel and a sound reminiscent of the Shirelles as well as the early Supremes. Jean Terrell sings with a dreamy sort of beauty and Cindy Birdsong and Mary Wilson echo her in voices so soft and tender, they're like a breeze blowing between Jean and the musicians whose work is just as lovely.

The production throughout is luscious but not syrupy and some of the finest work Robinson has done recently. It's a nice, satisfying combination, Smokey and the Supremes, but writing about it is like criticizing a hot fudge sundae. This is one of the best I've ever had. A social note: Cindy Birdsong has left the Supremes to have a child and although I assume she performed on Floy Joy, her replacement, Lynda Lawrence, formerly with Stevie Wonder, has already usurped Cindy's place on the cover. Sic transit etc. (RS 112)

VINCE ALETTI