The leading authority in pop-soul music, Motown, has just turned sixty years old. This incredible record label founded by Berry Gordy produced hit after hit for Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Rick James and so many other musicians. Motown was first known through its singles, the popular music format at the time, but it soon adapted from 1965 onwards as albums began to emerge. The good old vinyl LP totally transformed the label that called itself “the sound of young America” and transformed its artists’ careers along with it.

The Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go? (1964)

The second album from The Supremes is simply perfection. This absolute gem Brings together all of the finest tracks from the  Motown  music factory Where do you go to work? Well-dressed from head to toe, choreography gone through with a fine-tooth comb, lyrics about teenage matters Rather than politics ( I love him, he does not love me, why did you leave me? Are my reason to live, etc. ), polished productions and great rhythm instruments - everything came together to produce the Motown sound.And of course, at the heart of this iconic sound is beat-keeping with  Berry Gordy's favorite personal, the simple tambourine. The songs for this album were mainly written and produced by the Holland-Dozier-Holland trio  , a three-man team that Gordy put together in the past. Diana Ross ' name May be on the cover of this album, her voice will lead the group as she sings Alongside fellow performers  Mary Wilson  and  Florence Ballard  to create this dream pop perfection. Even if it is more of a compilation of singles, Where Did Our Love Go? works brilliantly as an album with a beginning, a middle and an end.A short story of unrivaled pop-soul.

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Going to a Go-Go (1965)

In the words of Bob DylanSmokey Robinson  is America's greatest living poet . As early as 1960, the Detroit boy, Motown boy and leader of The Miracles , was producing big hits for Berry Gordy's label. His success Was a result de son love for song-writing (for qui He Was Both preached by The Beatles and  Michael Jackson . He allowed on, " I always try to write songs, I just do not want to work there albums ."Indeed, writing comes naturally to Smokey's breathing, and he wrote Shop Around - his first million-dollar single from 1961 - in just 30 minutes. He went on to battle a serious cocaine addiction (" Life is full of temptations ") and remained loyal to the label, even becoming its vice president (" Once you're a Motown artist, you're always a Motown artist "). Released in November 1965, Going to A Go-Go was the Miracles' first studio LP credited as Smokey Robinson & The Miracles Smokey's genius. It was he who wrote or co-wrote each of the album's twelve tracks, which are mixed with pop, sometimes with a dash of doo-wop.The Tracks of My Tears , Going To A Go-Go , My Girl Has Gone and Ooo, Baby Baby , Smokey Shows His Sensitivity and black and white people From the passionate ballads to the up-tempo songs, Going To A Go-Go blew Everything That Motown HAD Previously Known out of the water.

Jr. Walker and the All Stars - Shotgun (1965)

It's not easy to get started with Autry DeWalt Mixon Jr., especially when you come from a remote village in Arkansas. Luckily this Southern boy, who was born in the United States, Walker .Indeed, he is a walker, but he is one of the saxophonist, one of the so-called honkers and screamers who blow their happiness and all their sorrow into their saxophone. Jr. Walker  was one of the most flamboyant saxophonists during the 60's, a decade in which his instrument was lost to the electric guitar and keyboard. When he joined Motown in 1962, Berry Gordy saw a lot of people, illiterate southern hick, who would do well performing behind the stars on stage. He could never have imagined that three years later, Walker's Shotgun would break the bank by reaching the top of the charts, followed by the brilliant album bearing the same.The music is much less dirty, cheeky humor and humor. Thanks to Jr. Walker , Gordy, who has been accused of becoming "too white", and that he could blues and rhythm'n'blues roots and the spirit of southern could still enrich his music.

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell - United (1967)

Marvin Gaye  and  Tammi Terrell  all falls America, apart from them America falls apart. The songs from Motown's favorite couple seem light years away from Vietnam War and the struggle for civil rights, however, their relationship was purely professional, like the Northern counterpart of the Southerners' partnership between  Otis Redding  and  Carla Thomas  from  Stax / Atlantic . On this aptly-named United album , which opens with the classic Is not No Mountain High Enough by  Ashford & Simpson , Marvin and Tammi engage in a stunning vocal tango. At 22 years old, she is a girl with a (very) strong personality, desperately in love. Although he is six years old, he is a well-matched match, but if anything ever happened between this legendary union and the transformed romantic pop-soul into an art form, it was never made public. Just two months after the album was released in a nightmare when TammiCollapsed on the stage of a concert and was just 24 years old, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor that killed her on March 16, 1970.

Four Tops - Reach Out (1967)

Four Each of These Four Musicians, the album name Reach Out is fitting. Before this fourth  Four Tops  album, lead singer Levi Stubbs and his fellow musicians Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton were outstanding singers and crooners of R & B, blues and gospel and had often worked as singers for many Motown artists, have a solid fan base.Afterwards, the band became the most popular pop-soul band around in 1967 thanks to the new advances brought about by the label's dream team, Holland-Dozier-Holland. Between the original songs (of course, Reach Out I'll Be There , also drank Standing in the Shadows of Love , Bernadette , I'll Turn to Stone and 7 Rooms of Gloom ) and the cover versions ( Tim Hardin 's If I Were a CarpenterThe Left Banke 's Walk Away ReneeThe Association 's Cherish and Two  Monkees  Hits,Last Train to Clarksville and I 'm Believer ), Reach Out took off like a rocket. Stubbs' powerful baritone voice, expressive as ever, is clearly the driving force behind this masterpiece that mixes soul, pop, rhythm'n'blues, doo-wop, gospel and rock.