Does Gen Z Know 50s & 60s Motown?

[DWSheffer]

This gives me more hope for the future of Motown! Make sure you expose younger folks to Motown as much as you can. Good music transcends generations when they know about it. Let some of the inaccuracies in the video slide and take it for what it is, young folks reacting to great music and hopefully keeping it alive for another generation.

[blackguy69]

I saw this yesterday I had a mixed reaction when I saw this.

[woodward]

I saw this yesterday I had a mixed reaction when I saw this.

We have to be optimistic. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

[Boogiedown]

ya I know when i was a teenager I was eagerly gobbling up my great grandparents music ...

[lockhartgary]

ya I know when i was a teenager I was eagerly gobbling up my great grandparents music ...

When I was in the 8th grade [[1978), I was listening to my mother's music from the early 1950s and into the 1960s. I even bought my own reissue 45s. I LOVED it!! Dominoes, Drifters, Coasters, Clovers, etc.

[Boogiedown]

I got stuck with this ....

[Levi Stubbs Tears]

"No Mom. I wanna stay home.

Grandpa always makes us listen to that awful music from a hundred years ago"...

[midnightman]

Judging on the Spotify streams, I'm sure they play Ain't No Mountain High Enough to prove "yeah I listen to the oldies" and then move on to '80s stuff that seems to be the "new oldies".

[jsmith]

Here in the UK, we didn't have very many 'locally based' soul stars. So, we never rated any singers / groups on how long it had been since their last US chart hit [[most never even got close to having a UK chart hit). So, in the 60's / 70's and even later, US soul acts would be booked to tour here on their past 'track record'.
ALSO, though BBC radio wouldn't play many original US soul recordings back when they were originally released, just about always going with a UK 'cover version', that changed in the 70's / 80's / 90's. In fact BBC Radio 2 [[their oldies stn) made a point of playing loads of 60's / 70's Motown & soul right thru to around 20 years ago.
So UK youf were always exposed to old Motown recordings, not so much now I think. But old soul still gets lots of exposure due to the UK club scenes based around Northern Soul, Modern Soul, Funk, Philly & Rare Groove events. These get loads of media exposure here + the children / grandchildren of those still on those scenes, get incidental exposure to that music.
LAST YEAR, my grandson, who had just got into music via rap, told me his fave record was currently "Get Down Saturday Night" by DJ Prodigio feat. Raphael Prince of Soul. I immediately gave him a spare 12" copy of Oliver Cheatham's original. One 16 year old truly educated.

[grapevine]

Here in the UK ...though BBC radio wouldn't play many original US soul recordings back when they were originally released, just about always going with a UK 'cover version', that changed in the 70's / 80's / 90's. In fact BBC Radio 2 [[their oldies stn) made a point of playing loads of 60's / 70's Motown & soul right thru to around 20 years ago ....so you were always exposed to old Motown recordings, not so much now I think...

...tracklist from BBC Radio 2 prog about an hour ago...!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xfll

Grape

[jsmith]

That's coz it was a show presented by 2 old PIRATE RADIO DJ's & was about 1960's UK Pirate Radio stns [[based on ships so as to be 'offshore' & therefore not illegal). It was the pirate stns playing 100% from records that were the 1st to feature 'wall to wall' Motown & US soul tracks for UK listeners.
. . . . JOHNNIE WALKER ... I'm gonna choose a soul record now ... and as my mum used to say, it's time for a bag of hush, there needs to be a degree of reverence paid to this record. It's one of the most stunning pieces of soul singing performances of all time .... an orchestra was sat around, she was in the next studio & so they decided to record this song ...
AFTER THAT BIT OF SPIEL BY A BRIT ABOUT A 60's SOUL RECORDING, IT CAN BE BUT ONE SONG .... most Yanks won't guess what track he then played [[it weren't a Motown one by the way) ... even though it was a big US R&B chart hit & even a Hot 100 pop hit. In the UK it never even got near any chart but it was still put out on 45 here about 5 or 6 different times.
US radio DJ's loved it as much as UK radio DJ's ... one was quoted as saying ... "This is a new concept and a new dimension in SOUL. It is an entirely new direction. I congratulate the producer and writer. I didn't think he could top his earlier creativity but this is the ultimate!"

[Philles/Motown Gary]

ya I know when i was a teenager I was eagerly gobbling up my great grandparents music ...

HaHa! That's true, Boogie! But the truth of the matter is that our grandparents [[Lawrence Welk fans) didn't have Motown to pass on to the youngin's like we have. Motown is super-cool and utterly timeless!

[sliebler]

I came across this a few months ago and it gave me hope. Just a lovely rendition of Where Did Our Love go that really impressed me and actually moved me: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2N5Q...dvcHh6ZDBrMzcx

[garyr]

I have a story relevant to this thread. I grew up in the 60s listening to Motown, then I had a child later in life who was in kindergarten in 2000-1. They asked the fathers to come in and talk about their work. I was an engineer but had also spent some time playing music for a living [[bass) which I figured was more interesting. So I brought in my bass and couple of songs on CD to play along with, one of them "Can't Help Myself" by the Four Tops with its great Jamerson bassline.

The moment I put on Can't Help Myself *every* *single* *kid* in the class got up and started dancing! And when it was over they all crowded around me begging me to play it again, all these kids born 30 years after the song was a hit. To top it off the class had maximum diversity both ethnically and socioeconomically. It was a great lesson in how timeless and universally appealing the music of Motown is, cutting across all boundaries of race, class and generation.

[Sotosound]

Part of the long-term appeal is that the music isn't gimmicky. Instead, it's straight forward danceable, sing-able, and whistle-able music.

It's also not linked to any specific type of formal dance. Instead, dancers can do their own thing, which gives it a delightfully loose feel. It goes straight to the hips, feet, and heart.

On top of that, it involves ensemble playing, which still grabs people, be it performed live or be it played back on anything from earbuds to a superb audio system.

In my view, these attributes give the music a timeless appeal, and if the music business churned out and promoted lots of this music then lots of people would eventually end up buying it.