Motown

On January 12, 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. borrowed $800 from his family and launched a record label in a small house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. He called it Tamla Records at first, but by 1960 it was Motown Record Corporation, a name borrowed from Detroit's nickname, Motor Town. That house became Hitsville U.S.A., and from its walls came a sound that changed American music forever.

Motown wasn't just a label, it was a system. Gordy ran it like an assembly line, mirroring the auto plants that defined Detroit. Songwriters like Smokey Robinson and the team of Holland-Dozier-Holland churned out hooks. The Funk Brothers, a crack house band, laid down the grooves. Artists attended finishing school, learning choreography and etiquette before they ever stepped on stage. The result was a polished, irresistible blend of pop and soul that crossed over to white audiences at a time when segregation still ruled the airwaves. Between 1960 and 1969, Motown landed 79 top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100, an unmatched run.

The label's golden era saw the rise of The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, and The Jackson 5. But by the early 1970s, tensions were brewing. The Holland-Dozier-Holland team left after royalty disputes, and the 1967 Detroit riots pushed Gordy to move operations to Los Angeles in 1972. Motown never quite recaptured its 60s dominance, but it kept evolving, launching the careers of Lionel Richie, Boyz II Men, and Erykah Badu. Sold to MCA in 1988 for $61 million, then to PolyGram in 1993, the label eventually landed under Universal Music Group's Capitol Music Group in 1998. Today, it remains active, signing contemporary acts like Lil Baby and City Girls while its historic catalog, spanning over 50,000 recordings, generates hundreds of millions in value.[edit]