Characteristics

 

• Typically incorporates soul with an easy pop appeal

• Tambourines to emphasize the back beat

• Melodic electric bass guitar lines

• Distinctive melodic and chord structures

• Call and response style singing from gospel music

• Orchestral string sections, poppy and commercially sounding horn sections

• Precisely arranged backing vocals

• Complex arrangements avoided along as melismatic and elaborate singing

• They believed in keeping it simple (KISS)

• Largely perfomed by African-Americans because it was hard for white musicians to replicate the sound

• Factory-like process of recording many songs at the same time after touring

•  Major producers: Holland–Dozier–Holland (Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian and Eddie Holland). Other important Motown producers and songwriters included Norman Whitfield, William "Mickey" Stevenson, Smokey Robinson, Barrett Strong, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Frank Wilson, Pamela Sawyer & Gloria Jones, James Dean & William Weatherspoon,Johnny Bristol, Harvey Fuqua, Gil Askey,[16] Stevie Wonder and Gordy himself.

• Associated with Detroit, Michigan but it was recorded in L.A and Chicago too.

• Commercially and money-motivated that too close attention to the charts: "t he test was that every new release needed to fit into a sequence of the top five selling pop singles of the week. Several tracks that later became critical and commercial favorites were initially rejected like Marvin Gaye's Heard Through The Grapevine"- Wiki 

• In the UK, it has been the basis of the Northern soul genre

 

Origins: 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s

 

Anthems:

 

1. Commodores- Easy

2. Mary Welles- My Guy

3. Thelma Houston- Don't Leave Me This Way

4. Minnie Riperton- Inside My Love

5. Diana Ross- Ain't No Mountain High Enough

6. Michael Jackson- Ain't No Sunshine

7. Jimmy Ruffin- What Becomes of The Brokenhearted

8. The Temptations- Ain't Too Proud To Beg

9. Marvin Gaye- What's Going On

10. Edwin Starr- Twenty Five Miles

11. The Spinners- I'll Always Love You

12. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas- Heatwave

13. Frank Wilson- Do I Love You (Indeed I do)

14. The Velvelettes- Needle In A Haystack

15. Smokey Robinson- Going To Go-Go