What Was the Motown Sound?

•Great melodies,lots of tambourines and hand clapping, blaring horns, interplay between the lead singer and his or her backup vocalists, driving bass lines and foot tapping drum parts.

•Motown chief engineer Mike McClain built a minuscule, tinny sorta sounding radio designed to approximate the sound of a car radio. The high-end bias of Motown's recordings can be partially traced to the company's reliance on this piece of equipment.

Things changed in 1967. During that year Detroit experienced riots. Gordy looked west, towards Los Angeles (how could such a large entertainment company as his not be involved in movies and television?). By the end of the 1960’s most Motown acts were starting to decline. The exception    of this would be the Jackson 5 and Marvin Gaye. In 1972 the label moved to L.A. This was the end    of the label as an industry powerhouse.