1974 The Osmonds: Love Me For A Reason

If Donny Osmond's solo career was a sickly sweet dessert straight out of the treacle tin then at least The Osmonds en masse had the decency to aim at something more akin to a main course with their output (and in the case of 'Crazy Horses' even managing to sound just plain weird). What helps with this too is having Motown stalwart Johnny Bristol writing for them and then Merrill rather than Donny taking lead vocal, two facts that render this as something more substantial at a stroke.

'Love Me For A Reason' has always struck me as a song of two parts; Bristol may have known his way around a tune, but this effort hides some spectacularly stiff lyrics ("I'm just a little old-fashioned, it takes more than physical attraction. My initial reaction is honey give me love, not a facsimile of") so it's probably for the best that most of its running time is devoted to that cartwheel of a chorus where the hooked double repetition of 'love' hangs on to the catchy tune to disguise it's teleological 'message' that isn't really making too much sense by itself; 'Love me for a reason, let the reason be love' - that's a phrase designed to be swooned over while gawping at the record sleeve rather than analysed for meaning (much like the emotion it's trumpeting I suppose) and in that aspect at least the song nails it's audience to the wall, albeit in a nice, not cynical way - despite a smokescreen of grown up bravado, 'Love Me For A Reason' remains teen fodder at heart.

'Don't love me for fun girl, let me be the one girl'; now that's a straight bullseye, a set of words designed to strike chords galore with young teens not yet soured by experience, and it would strike them no matter who was singing it. But in having it delivered by a bunch of clean cut heartthrobs, the whole becomes less a song and more a licence to print money (as Boyzone were to appreciate some twenty years later). Nothing wrong with that in essence - everybody has to eat and 'Love Me For A Reason' provides a big enough helping of quality for everyone to get their teeth into. Which is a damn sight more than can be said about the fodder offered up by the majority of boy bands who followed in their wake.