Records
Everybody knows that Motown has nothing to do with Detroit. The challenge that Motown presented to the prevailing axis of the music industry when Berry Gordy first set up shop was a challenge on the power structure’s own terms. The assumptions were the same; there was no new intellectual or moral stance.
Records
Everybody knows that Motown has nothing to do with Detroit. The challenge that Motown presented to the prevailing axis of the music industry when Berry Gordy first set up shop was a challenge on the power structure’s own terms. The assumptions were the same; there was no new intellectual or moral stance. It was just a question of doing the same job better. Finding a formula, molding artists and music to the new readymades, and grinding out the product. The orientation was wholly commercial, wholly pragmatic, completely successful within the framework which the Motown people chose for themselves. Of course, the Motown formula sprang to a degree spontaneously from the genius of Smokey Robinson and others, but once evolved, it was applied relentlessly. Newwine in old bottles, the same old Biz with a slightly shifted power base.
