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Thursday 13 July 2017

Various Artists




There's a good chance that if you grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, at some point, having heard a Motown song via your parent's record collection, the telly, a youth club disco or through a film, you bought one of these Motown compilations. You've probably got some of them and their companions in your house. Our parents generation bought the singles. We bought these bumper albums, stacked with up to twenty songs, as many as the grooves could take and still be audible. The cd boom of the 1990s saw the Chartbusters series released on shiny digital disc, often knocked down to a quid or two in HMV. Pound for pound some of the best purchases you could make.

We all like to find the songs hidden away in the corners- the B-sides, the remixes, the album tracks, the ones that only we know about. With Motown it's all about the hits. And a bumper Motown Various Artist compilations post means a bumper song selection today; The Supremes, The Four Tops and The Temptations.

Automatically Sunshine

I Can't Help Myself 

Cloud Nine

6 comments:

Charity Chic said...

Just picked up a Motown comp from that vintage which will feature shortly

The Swede said...

We might as well all pack and go home for the day. It won't get any better than this.

drew said...

I have all of those albums.

If you haven't already you need to read Detroit 67 by Stuart Cosgrove, the book could have done with a better editor too much repetition but really informative .

Michael Doherty said...

I Can't Help Myself may be the greatest series of sounds collected together ever. Sheer sunshine, makes me smile from ear to ear to ear... Standing In The Shadows Of Motown should be shown in primary and secondary schools!

JTFL said...

Somehow, I never heard that Supremes song. Can't count the times I heard the other two--Motown comps featured in almost every party I've been to over the last 35 years. Very odd to hear a vintage Motor City song for the first time.

Swiss Adam said...

What a massive pleasure that must be JTFL- I'm quite envious.