Motown's Top 10 Achievers – Part 2
THE ALBUM HITMAKERS ACROSS THREE DECADES
Barney Ales knew Motown Records’ very first album releases inside out.
It was June of 1961, and he had recently quit a local record distributor in Detroit to join Berry Gordy’s upstart firm as national sales manager and promotion director. That month, his priorities included three LPs which were being shipped to the trade: Hi! We’re The Miracles, The Soulful Moods Of Marvin Gaye and Tamla Special No. 1, a various-artists package.
Ales got to work, pitching to Motown’s distributors across the U.S. and labouring every which way to ensure the albums got into circulation among one-stops and retailers. The Miracles’ 45, “Ain’t It Baby,” had cracked the Billboard Hot 100 a few weeks earlier, which helped, but Gaye’s debut single, “Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide,” was struggling.
Two for one: Motown's first charted LP
In the event, none of the three LPs sold enough to register on the charts, but Ales vividly recalled the compilation album – and the second such offering, Motown Hits Vol. 1 – for another reason. “Everybody had 12 songs on albums like that,” he told me, “but we put some out with ten. We got nothing but complaints. The letters would come in. So we changed that. I said, ‘Let’s go to 16 [tracks], let’s really hit them in the fucking head.’ ”
It was an advantage that all the songs were published by Motown’s own Jobete Music. Had they been published elsewhere, the royalty rate per song – “a penny” to Jobete was Ales’ recollection – would not have been as favourable. “We wouldn’t have been able to get that [with others],” he laughed.
And so A Collection Of 16 Original Big Hits became one of Motown’s best-known, most profitable LP lines, with seven volumes reaching the Billboard charts from 1964-68. Their cover art was uniform and distinctive, while most of the tracks were, indeed, hits.
Here, though, the focus is on Top 10 achievers: the Hitsville acts who spent time at or near the summit of the main Billboard album charts during the 29 years that Berry Gordy owned and operated Motown Records. Shortly before its first long-players were issued, the Billboard sales charts were expanded to 150 positions (mono) and 50 (stereo). One week before Little Stevie Wonder’s The 12 Year Old Genius reached Number One – Motown’s first such triumph – the trade magazine consolidated the mono and stereo listings into one, 150-position countdown. Billboard described Wonder’s album “hot as a pistol,” and “a sock seller.” Fuelling that success, of course, was “Fingertips – Pt. 2,” which was then in its third week atop the Hot 100.
At that point, Wonder (who had turned 13 in May) was the youngest artist ever to score a Number One album, and only the second teenager, after Ricky Nelson. The 12 Year Old Genius was also the first “live” album ever to reach Number One. That he went on to become the Motown act with the most Top 10 albums is no surprise, but the details are still worth savouring – in particular, the 14 weeks that Songs In The Key of Life ruled the roost, when it kept at bay the likes of Boz Scaggs, Earth, Wind & Fire, Led Zeppelin and Rod Stewart.
During its 1960s and ’70s heyday, Motown did not join the Recording Industry Association of America, the official certifier of gold and platinum albums and singles. But in the 1980s, when Jay Lasker was company president, four Wonder albums were RIAA-validated: Hotter Than July (platinum, one million copies sold), Stevie Wonder’s Original Musiquarium I (gold, 500,000), The Woman in Red soundtrack (platinum) and In Square Circle (double platinum). And in 2005, when Motown was under the ownership of Universal Music, Songs… was finally RIAA-certified for sales of ten million copies, otherwise known as diamond.
Taking care of business at the summit
The second most-consistent Top 10 achievers were the Temptations, with ten such albums between 1967-73. Only one reached the summit (and that was with Diana Ross & the Supremes in a TV special soundtrack, TCB) but seven were gold-certified, while the five-man group’s Greatest Hits – arguably one of Motown’s finest-ever compilations – was dubbed double-platinum (sales of two million). Frustratingly, Temptin’ Temptations missed the Billboard Top 10 by one slot early in February 1966.
The queens of Motown matched Stevie Wonder’s trio of Number One albums among their Top 10 total of eight, with Diana Ross & The Supremes Greatest Hits spending a notable five weeks on the throne. As noted in Craig Rosen’s The Billboard Book of Number One Albums, it was not only the trio’s second trip to the top, but also only the second greatest-hits package to get there (the first was by Johnny Mathis in 1958) and only the second two-LP set to hit Number One (following Judy Garland’s Judy at Carnegie Hall in 1961).
The Supremes’ first Top 10 title, Where Did Our Love Go, was frozen out of Number One by Beatles ’65, but The Supremes A’ Go-Go provided revenge by ending the Liverpudlians’ six weeks at the summit with Revolver. Oh, and one album by Diana, Mary and Florence stalled at No. 11: The Supremes at the Copa.
“Album sales picked up like crazy after the Supremes began appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show,” remembered Barney Ales. By then, he had appointed Phil Jones as Motown’s national album sales director. “All the sales department were close to all the producers, writers, arrangers, artists,” Jones told trade press tipster Bill Gavin years later. “I remember doing some foot-stomping on Supremes records.”
Another positive factor for Motown’s LP sales was its 1966 deal with the Columbia Record Club. “You’ve got to remember that at its peak, the club had 10 million members,” said Ales, “and accounted for ten percent of all records sold.” Originally, Columbia only wanted one title, Where Did Our Love Go, but the Motown executive persuaded them to go for five. “It put Motown in a completely different elevation in the record business from then on.”
The Miracles' first charted LP
During the ’70s, Marvin Gaye and the Commodores each scored five Top 10 albums, and this was when the relevant Billboard chart was 200-slots deep. Following them were a solo Diana Ross and the Jackson 5, both with four Top 10s (the youngsters’ Maybe Tomorrow stalled at No. 11). Two individual Jacksons, Michael and Jermaine, accrued one Top 10 album apiece.
Lionel Richie’s three Top 10 releases – including two Number Ones – generated total sales of 18 million copies, as certified by the RIAA: Lionel Richie (4 million), Can’t Slow Down (10 million) and Dancing On The Ceiling (also 4 million).
That multi-platinum success was light years ahead of the Motown albums which, in 1963, initially charted in Billboard. Mary Wells’ Two Lovers and Other Great Hits was the first, peaking at No. 49 that April, followed by The Fabulous Miracles (No. 118 in June) and The Motor-Town Revue Vol. 1 (No. 47 in August). Then The 12 Year Old Genius outshone them all.
Chart peaks don’t always tell the whole story. Motown’s 1983 soundtrack album for The Big Chill couldn’t climb higher than No. 17, but it was eventually RIAA-certified for sales of six million. What’s more, although the 1960s are generally considered to be Motown’s most creative and influential period, it accumulated fewer Top 10 albums during that decade than in the ’70s: 18 compared to 26. (The firm scored 12 in the ’80s before being sold).
And so to the count, which should speak for itself. Each Top 10 title is listed below with its peak position, and in the case of chart-toppers, they are bold-faced and the number of weeks at Number One is shown (in parentheses). Also indicated is the year in which each record achieved its peak.
STEVIE WONDER (11)
#1 (1) The 12 Year Old Genius (Tamla) 1963
#3 Talking Book (Tamla) 1973
#4 Innervisions (Tamla) 1973
#1 (2) Fulfillingness’ First Finale (Tamla) 1974
#1 (14) Songs In The Key of Life (Tamla) 1976
#4 Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants (Tamla) 1979
#3 Hotter Than July (Tamla) 1980
#4 Stevie Wonder’s Original Musiquarium I (Tamla) 1982
#4 The Woman In Red (soundtrack) (Motown) 1984
#5 In Square Circle (Tamla) 1985
#5 A Time To Love (Motown) 2005
THE TEMPTATIONS (10)
#5 Greatest Hits (Gordy) 1967
#10 Temptations Live! (Gordy) 1967
#7 With A Lot O’ Soul (Gordy) 1967
#2 Diana Ross & The Supremes Join The Temptations (Motown) 1969
#1 (1) TCB (with Diana Ross & The Supremes) (Motown) 1969
#4 Cloud Nine (Gordy) 1969
#5 Puzzle People (Gordy) 1969
#9 Psychedelic Shack (Gordy) 1970
#2 All Directions (Gordy) 1972
#7 Masterpiece (Gordy) 1973
THE SUPREMES (8)
#2 Where Did Our Love Go (Motown) 1964
#6 More Hits By The Supremes (Motown) 1965
#8 I Hear A Symphony (Motown) 1966
#1 (2) The Supremes A’ Go-Go (Motown) 1966
#6 The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland (Motown) 1967
#1 (5) Diana Ross & The Supremes Greatest Hits (Motown) 1967
#2 Diana Ross & The Supremes Join The Temptations (Motown) 1969
#1 (1) TCB (with The Temptations) 1969
MARVIN GAYE (5)
#6 What’s Going On (Tamla) 1971
#2 Let’s Get It On (Tamla) 1973
#8 Marvin Gaye Live! (Tamla) 1974
#4 I Want You (Tamla) 1976
#3 Live At The London Palladium (Tamla) 1977
THE COMMODORES (5)
#3 Commodores (Motown) 1977
#3 Commodores Live! (Motown) 1977
#3 Natural High (Motown) 1978
#3 Midnight Magic (Motown) 1979
#7 Heroes (Motown) 1980
DIANA ROSS (4)
#1 (2) Lady Sings The Blues (soundtrack) (Motown) 1973
#5 Touch Me In The Morning (Motown) 1973
#5 Diana Ross (Motown) 1976
#2 Diana (Motown) 1980
THE JACKSON 5 (4)
#5 Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5 (Motown) 1970
#4 ABC (Motown) 1970
#4 Third Album (Motown) 1970
#7 Lookin’ Through The Windows (Motown) 1972
LIONEL RICHIE (3)
#3 Lionel Richie (Motown) 1982
#1 (3) Can’t Slow Down (Motown) 1983
#1 (2) Dancing On The Ceiling (Motown) 1986
THE MIRACLES (2)
#8 Going To A Go-Go (Tamla) 1966
#7 Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (Tamla) 1968
RICK JAMES (1)
#3 Street Songs (Gordy) 1981
FOUR TOPS (1)
#4 Greatest Hits (Motown) 1967
MICHAEL JACKSON (1)
#5 Ben (Motown) 1972
JERMAINE JACKSON (1)
#6 Let’s Get Serious (Motown) 1980
GLADYS KNIGHT & THE PIPS (1)
#9 Neither One Of Us (Soul) 1973
SMOKEY ROBINSON (1)
#10 Being With You (Tamla) 1981