Motown Greatest Hits

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This intuitive grasp of his own talent was never better illustrated than on 1965’s rip-roaring Shotgun. Some top notch carnal music would follow, but none would come close to What’s Going On for forceful relevance and game-changing ambition. Regardless of country of origin all tracks are sung in English, unless otherwise stated in our description. But Gaye’s own attitude to sex was complicated – his preacher father’s fire and brimstone prudery had planted a seedling of guilt that never withered – and Let’s Get It On would not be the great art it is if it were a mere carnival of zipless erotomania. The promise of Gaye’s sophisticated loving is all in his voice, coarser than the crystalline angeltone he employed on What’s Going On, but no less exquisite, and similarly augmented by a crosstalk of Marvindubs and brilliantly inventive backing vox (the impressionistic, dove-like coos from 3:50 in Let’s Get It On are astonishing).

Products labelled '*item fulfilled by Exertis on behalf of hmv' will be supplied to you directly by Exertis via their approved couriers. 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 was bought again by PolyGram in 1993, becoming a part of the Universal Music Group after it purchased PolyGram in 1999.Neither seems to have full control over their melodic “gush”; they almost never let anything get in the way of the vocal and sometimes their songs seem built for the sheer joy of singing. Witness the seven-and-a-half minute, clavinet-stomp of Living For The City – a biting exposé of metropolitan decay in which the boy “born in hard time Mississippi” struggles to find a job “’cause where he lives they don’t use coloured people”.

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. Also included are some beautiful new guest vocalist versions that sit alongside the original vocals laid down over 50 years ago. or healing the world’s pain with the sheer exultation of this album’s mightily comforting, all-encompassing bear-hug of a title track. Talking Book is about the tunes, but it’s also about the times – and that’s the spoonful of medicine that helps the melodic sugar go down. Certain items can take longer to source than the estimated week, particularly during busy trading periods and may take longer to arrive at our warehouse.

But you can’t have one without the other, and for every sceptic of Talking Book’s Marmite opener, You Are The Sunshine Of My Life, there are a thousand suckers for its uninhibited whistleability and emotional boldness. The Tempts take the epic acid funk workouts of 1970’s Psychedelic Shack and stretch out the centres and soften the edges, pulling you down into a lush paradise of swirling strings and vocal harmonies. Previously, we celebrated the 100 Greatest Motown songs to leap off the Detroit production line, but what about those all-important albums? Of course, like all drug highs, once you go beyond the pretty surfaces there are darker forces at work.

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.

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’m so very grateful to my loyal fans all around the world, especially those in the UK who have never stopped supporting my career.

For the most part, when these unreleased tracks come out, they are as new to me as they are to my fans. The insistent sermonising shuffle of Higher Ground (written and recorded in an astonishing three-hour whirlwind) and the jazzy uplift of Don’t You Worry ’Bout A Thing both prove that in the world of Stevie Wonder, hope continued to spring eternal. 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. Plus, a special bonus disk of The Best of Motown the 1970’s featuring: Rick James, The Commodores, The Jackson 5, Rare Earth, Edwin Starr and others - Over seven hours of soul-pop classics! Sadly they did not, and after two years in which the quartet recorded at least 30 sides and released just three non-charting 45s, their career at Motown was over.Every bit as fine as the album’s hit ballads, last track A Fork In The Road is no ordinary ‘road’ song.