What's Up With "Motown"

[longtimefan]

Many comments have been posted on this board in the last year or so regarding the poor communication from Motown in regard to their upcoming and future releases of classic music [[as opposed to new artists). Issues include but are not limited to:

- HipO basically being a thing of the past!
- What ever happened to Spectrum, by the way?
- Horray for new items from Japan, although they are are not "expanded editions."
- What's up with the sudden appearance of rarities on iTunes? ... And what does "remastered for iTunes" mean and what is it's future?
- Is Harry still with the organization?

I know this might sound like a complaint posting, but it's really being written from concern from a 50 year customer. With all of the social media and web possibilies available, why does "Motown" [[or whoever they are) not OFFICIALLY advertise and/or communicate with customers? I am really mystified.

p.s. I resolved not to mention BABY IT'S ME. :-)

[mowsville]

here ,here.

[marybrewster]

You wonder if Japan is able to "lease" [[? is that the right term?) titles like "The Supremes" [[1975) and "Black Magic" [[by the Vandellas), how hard it would be for them to secure the right to distribute "Funny Girl" by DRATS?

[soulster]

Many comments have been posted on this board in the last year or so regarding the poor communication from Motown in regard to their upcoming and future releases of classic music [[as opposed to new artists).

There is another thread about this elsewhere, but the company has been restructuring, and has moved back to Los Angeles, and is now under the Capitol Records umbrella, as EMI was acquired by Universal. Motown is autonomous in its operations again, too.

Issues include but are not limited to:

- HipO basically being a thing of the past!

Yup. Old news.

- What ever happened to Spectrum, by the way?

That is a U.K. imprint. I have no information about that.

- Horray for new items from Japan, although they are are not "expanded editions."

Japan does what they want.

- What's up with the sudden appearance of rarities on iTunes?

It's the realities of the record business today. Fewer CDs are being sold, so companies are deciding that it's more cost-effective to release niche product as downloads. It sucks that the only source of some things are in lossy downloads, but so many people won't buy CDs anymore, and the distribution and retail availability is is dwindling.

... And what does "remastered for iTunes" mean and what is it's future?

https://ssl.apple.com/itunes/mastere...for_itunes.pdf

http://www.lynda.com/iTunes-tutorial.../116700-4.html

- Is Harry still with the organization?

I believe he is.

I know this might sound like a complaint posting, but it's really being written from concern from a 50 year customer. With all of the social media and web possibilies available, why does "Motown" [[or whoever they are) not OFFICIALLY advertise and/or communicate with customers? I am really mystified.

You'll have to ask them that.

p.s. I resolved not to mention BABY IT'S ME. :-)

I understand that it's coming up soon in a "boxed" set this fall.

[mysterysinger]

Clearly Spectrum is still going ok - witness the new Motown Northern Soul set...http://www.amazon.co.uk/Motown-North...+northern+soul

[thanxal]

Really? Hip-o is done and over with? Did someone announce that here? Sorry to hear that. If nothing else it was a good clearinghouse for recent Motown and Verve reissues. Is there a planned replacement? I hate continuously searching Amazon to find the latest Motown or Ella, Billie or jazz reissues.

[soulster]

Really? Hip-o is done and over with? Did someone announce that here?

Yup. Its been almost a year.

I'm not sure if Motown is also retaking the reissue part of it, but if they are, all the better. I think it's better than Universal corporate, or a reissue arm like Hip-O doing them, if they are. That way, they can concentrate on the label's own output and not 10 million other things too. Of course, Motown will be doing new product as well.

I do not know if Harry Weinger will still be part of it. He has also been doing pop/rock reissues of late.

[keith_hughes]

Soulster, I think "almost a year" is a slight exaggeration. "The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 12B" was issued on the "Motown Select" imprint, which is a division of the Hip-O label, last December. But I haven't seen or heard of any new Hip-O product in the last seven months.

I last heard from Mr Weinger a couple of weeks ago - he was certainly still working on the Motown catalogue then!

[thanxal]

I never heard anything about Hip-O during the recent corporate deck-chair-rearranging exercise, but assumed its slow pace was caused by that. I hadn't heard they pulled the plug.

I don't really care who serves up the reissues as long as we have A place to go to find them. The old days of endless Amazon searches, or even before that TowerRecords.com to find new reissues was painful.

[Ngroove]

To be honest, as a Motown listener / collector / fan, I could not be happier.

Thanks to Motown / Universal's Japanese division, I could buy more classic Motown albums, from Supremes, Martha & the Vandellas, Four Tops, 60s Marvin, Edwin Starr, [[Detroit) Spinners, Fantastic Four, to even Lovesmith and Susaye & Scherrie in CD form now. Once I'm done with my fill of that, there's still two-fers of Dynamic Superiors, Tata Vega, Jerry Butler, Ozone, and even Hearts of Stone's re-available now!

Which that's awesome! Because, it felt not so long ago, when all that was available album re-master wise, was the 70s Marvin / 70s Stevie / Lionel Richie / Teena Marie / Diana Ross' "Diana" / Rick James' "Street Songs" / Junior Walker & the All-Stars' "Shotgun" / some Temptations / that's about it. Some more Junior Walker would always be welcomed, but there's still a whole lot more to pick up before I worry about that.