Artist	Song
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles	Love Machine
from Funk Soul USA (2002)

Comment:

The swirling, circus-of-pain intro; the lyrics that lay a broken heart bare; the fragile and, yes, smoky falsetto — it can only be "The Tears of a Clown", the crowning composition in the catalogue of Motown poet laureate Smokey Robinson and his Miracles. Then there's "The Tracks of My Tears", that oozy, bluesy roadmap to heartbreak and the top of the charts. If it seems like Smokey spent a whole lot of time in tears, don't feel too bad. What with the decades' worth of hits he penned for himself and others, our pop-soul Pagliacci cried all the way to an oh-so-special place in our souls.

Early and late hits frame the batch of Motown classics we call Smokey's Next Steps.

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