Founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. in 1959 as Tamla Records Motown Records, he changed the name to Motown in 1960 -- combining "motor" and "town" in honor of Detroit, where the label was located. I guess I didn't realize that Motown Records is the reason Motown is one of Detroit's nicknames, and not the other way around.
Motown came to define American pop music in the 1960s (and beyond), as the label took soul music and made it more accessible to mainstream (read: white) pop audiences. The results cannot be disputed. Motown and its subsidiary labels recorded some of the biggest and most successful names in music history -- The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, The Four Tops, The Temptations, The Miracles, The Commodores, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Rick James, Lionel Richie, and Boyz II Men, to name a few. With a crack team of backing studio musicians known as The Funk Brothers -- who have famously played on more #1 hits than The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys combined, which is ridiculous -- and some of the best pop songwriters of all-time -- Holland-Dozier-Holland, Smokey Robinson, Whitfield & Strong, and Ashford & Simpson, among others -- it's no surprise that between 1961 and 1971, Motown artists had 110 Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Overall, Motown and its subsidiary labels have produced 57 #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
I have many Motown records on vinyl (and in other formats, for that matter), so choosing one was tough, but I was in a Smokey Robinson kind of mood, so I went with The Miracles' Greatest Hits Vol. 2. Robinson is one of the greatest pop songwriters in any genre, and I think The Miracles' music is a great representation of the "Motown Sound." While I realize the group was called both The Miracles and then Smokey Robinson & The Miracles at different times, I prefer to use The Miracles, but you do whatever the fuck you want to do. The group's debut album, Hi ... We're The Miracles, was literally the first album every released by Motown or any of its related labels. The Greatest Hits Vol. 2 album was released in 1968, three years after the group released its initial greatest hits album. Volume 2 has some of the group's biggest hits -- though it predates "Tears of a Clown" by two years.
Favorite song from Side 1: "Tracks of My Tears"
This is my favorite Miracles' song and my favorite song penned by Smokey Robinson. One of Robinson's many great songwriting strengths was his ability to juxtapose joy and pain. If you listen to the music of "Tears of a Clown" but not the lyrics, you'd probably think it's a happy pop song, but in reality, it's all about someone hiding that he's miserable. Co-written by Robinson and fellow Miracles Pete Moore and Marv Tarplin, "Tracks of My Tears," originally released in 1965, is another fantastic pop song about someone hiding the pain of lost love behind a facade of laughter and smiling.
Favorite song from Side 2: "(Come 'Round Here) I'm The One You Need"
What strikes me most about "(Come 'Round Here) I'm The One You Need" -- originally released in 1966 -- is how much it sounds like it should be sung by The Supremes or The Four Tops. It's got that brooding soul sound of "Bernadette," "Reflections," or "Standing in the Shadows of Love." And after doing some more research on the song, I know why. It was written and produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland, who wrote and produced most of those groups' most-recognizable hits (including those three songs). The Miracles do a great job of making it their own, and it is undoubtedly Motown.
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