Customer Reviews

Complete Motown Singles 8: 1968

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Just finished listening to 1968. 6 discs , 144 songs , 6 hours , 47 minutes and 28 seconds. We are now at 43 discs , 1,106 songs , over 50 hours for volumes 1-8 , with four more to go. If you've read the other reviews , you know how impressed I am with this whole series. EVERY Motown single (A & B side), from each year 1959-1972 (the Detroit years), being released in 12 lovingly-assembled cd box sets, to be completed by 2009 (the 50th anniversary of Motown). You'll hear old faves as well as things you never heard before....but be forewarned , once you hear one set , you will want to hear it all. 1968 is a great place to start.Go ahead, PUT THIS IN YOUR CART!!!

Presented here is another volume in the acclaimed 'Complete Motown Singles' series. 1968, despite the lawsuits, bitching, group member changes, etc., was probably the best year so far for the company. It's 45 release/chart action ratio was 75%, an unheard of amount for singles that would hit the top 100 charts.
This is also the year where Stevie Wonder would continue his hitmaking streak, as with Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, where both released superb albums that year as well, but single-wise, superb.
1968 also marked a year where The Supremes began to have a problems going in the Top 10. Among the obvious, there were new artists that tried, but didn't make their mark, like Chuck Jackson, one of my favorite artists, but was under-utilized at Motown.
Again, the quality is superb, and again, if you have purchased the previous volumes, it would make perfect sense to pick this one up, before they are all gone, as these are limited in pressing.

The hits from 1968 are here: "For Once In My Life" by Stevie Wonder, "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye, "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, among others, but what is fascinating to me is the other stuff on the set, such as some early recordings by Rita Wright. She would later be renamed Syreeta Wright, and co-write with Stevie Wonder, Lulu Mae Hardaway (Stevie's mom), and Lee Garrett the classic "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours", but that song will come out in 1970. She would also marry (and divorce) Stevie Wonder, but all of that will happen in the next 2-6 years.

The first song she had with Motown, "I Can't Give Back The Love I Feel For You", would later find more success with Diana Ross, but she gave the song a fine, elegant polish for her version.

Gladys Knight & The Pips keep on going strong with the leftover songs that Motown saddled them with usually, but Ms. Knight as always, gives it her best in the singles that were released in 1968, especially "The End Of Our Road".

Looking at the roster that Motown had back in the 1960's, it was like having the two best teams in a sport on the same roster, with the second tier singers (Gladys Knight & The Pips, The Spinners, and Edwin Starr) were just as good as the Four Tops, Supremes, Marvin Gaye, or Stevie Wonder. You had to fight to get noticed by Berry Gordy, and the history of how "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" was released, twice, is a revelation in itself.

Anyway, this collection is worth spending the $$ for.

This entire series is amazing. I believe it will be completed at the publication of the 12th volume, and each volume has 5 or 6 discs. I am up to Volume 9, and I can't really say there has yet been a single weak song. And I have now discovered so many awesome Motown songs I had never even heard before! This truly is a treasure trove. Yes, some songs are better than others, but all the music from this amazing dozen-year Motown era is great. The British Invasion may have brought over the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and many others, but our American Motown is of equal or better historic significance. This music is just so consistently CLASSY it defies words. Elegance just pours out from each disc here, it is unprecedented and will never be equaled in the future.

I've been surprised to learn that there are styles of music other than soul on the Motown label. There is some very good country music as well. These discs also have a smattering of interviews and some other holiday-type nonsense which are very fun to hear and which puts the entire era in context.

The packaging for the entire series is the best I've ever seen. It is a little hard to hold the book open so you can pull out or put in the discs, but this is a minor struggle and it is well worth it. The discs are held tightly in place and are well protected, and the historical information about any particular song is readily accessible. The 45 disc which slots into the front cover is really an innovative and clever flourish, and it gives the volume's book a really nice upgrade.

Okay, here is the bummer, and it is a major one. If you are like me, you are going to want the entire series if you buy even a single volume. You will buy the first volume and you will immediately realize that it is a worthwhile investment to obtain the entire series. And who really wants to own only part of a series of anything? The cost of even one volume here is enough that you'll probably want the entire collection. Well, as I write this, in January of 2009, volume 6 is no longer available. Gone. Completely gone, except for some guy trying to sell copies for $2000 as an Amazon-affiliated seller. As good as this music is, I'm not going to spend $2000 on a single volume.Yes, I've searched eBay relentlessly for months, with no luck at all. Yes, I've searched the virtual catacombs of international online sellers, with no luck at all.

So, I'm already over a thousand bucks into this series and yet my collection is missing one of the best volumes (it covers 1966 when a lot of the talent was at their crescendos). I've twice emailed Hip-O Select Records, the publisher, and not heard a word back. I've called their customer service, and they were clueless and indifferent. The girl who answered the phone for them did not know a thing about the series. Basically what has happened, by proclaiming this as a "Limited Edition," is that they have created an inducement for various opportunistic sellers to hoard the best volumes and then to gouge Motown fans later when the inventory held by legitimate sellers is gone. They then jack the price up into the stratosphere.

So, one can only hope that Hip-O Select does another run of these amazing Motown volumes. If you are a Motown fan, you will be astonished when you hear all the incredible treasures which this series contains.