Motown Greatest Hits

Product Information

marks the 60th year of Motown, widely regarded as the greatest, most successful and best-loved record label in music and to commemorate this landmark anniversary Motown are issuing this 'Greatest Hits' compilation, featuring 60 tracks from across their enormously influential and remarkable history. In fact, no other record sounds quite like Talking Book, an album borne aloft on bubbles, simultaneously light yet sophisticated on the jazzoid You’ve Got It Bad Girl, irresistibly bittersweet Tuesday Heartbreak and the autumnal folkfunk of Big Brother. The Detroit quartet’s cancelled Motown album released at last – with 13 bonus tracks, many previously unissued.

Regardless of country of origin all tracks are sung in English, unless otherwise stated in our description. Language - Regardless of country of origin all tracks are sung in English, unless otherwise stated in our description. The album comprised an overview of Brenda’s four-year spell with Motown, featuring all of her USA-sides, five B-sides and two tracks from her “Every Little Bit Hurts” long-player. There was no ‘punk’ as any MOJO reader might recognise the term in James’s hybrid, which was actually funk-rock-pop; while his image was more Hollywood Pimp.

Unfortunately for the Fantastic Four, it would not be until they moved to Westbound Records that they were able to rekindle the chart flame that had burned through their Ric Tic years. I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow / And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow,” he pleads during Living For The City.

The album’s final groover, Ain’t That The Truth, leads us directly back to the Motown Sound right down to the signature tambourine snappin’ on the offbeat.When they came over to Motown while their last Ric Tic hit was scaling the charts, bigger things looked set to follow. Given the right circumstances, almost everything they recorded could have been hits to match those the company was having with such groups as the Originals, the Undisputed Truth and the Temptations. It’s Summer, a Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong ballad, offers a necessary change of pace and tone but the album is predominantly concerned with the nitty gritty of physical attraction and emotional commitment, be it consummated or crushed.

That title track opened the floodgates for a cycle of songs that, far from being the hippy-soul peace-and-love fest it can at first appear, would address the human cost of war (What’s Going On), environmental breakdown (Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)), the protection of innocence (Save The Children) and social injustice (Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)), to a soundtrack of honeyed, loose, rock-solid soul with strings and a uniquely expressive singer pleading for sanity and humanity. The compilation features legendary Motown artists including The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Temptations, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, The Jackson 5 and Lionel Richie. Gaye ends with Just To Keep You Satisfied, in which the sweet loving is weighed against “the bitching” and Marvin ends up concluding that maybe he’ll see her “somewhere down the line”. Ever keen to push the sonic boundaries of his most treasured outfit he introduced the vocal group to the expansive sensual high of the love-generation psychedelic and set in motion the new sound of Sky’s The Limit, a lush, epic journey up to the apex of celestial soul.

The label had moved to Los Angeles and the core studio musicians – aka the Funk Brothers – who had recorded the distinctive, inventive backgrounds, were largely discarded. Within Universal, Motown was incorporated into various other subsidiaries including Universal Motown Records Group from 2000 to 2011 and later moved to Island Def Jam Music Group until both label groups were disbanded by UMG in 2014. Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye hired their own bands; ubiquitous LA session men backed Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, The Supremes and the other stars who remained; Norman Whitfield followed Holland-Dozier-Holland through the out door and quit, as did four-fifths of The Jackson 5. The “Artistry” album was issued in mono and stereo, but the stereo version is much rarer today, so we have decided to go with that for our CD reissue, with one exception.