Motown Conquers Today’s Youth: An Anecdote

Earlier today, I was in my bedroom. My roommate’s 24-year-old son, who speaks of Lil Wayne in the way that some speak of Mozart or Billie Holiday, was in our living room. I was jolted when I heard the strains of Marvin Gaye singing “When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You.” I thought wow: This young guy, who dismissed Whitney as just a “crackhead” when the world was in deep mourning, is finally getting some CUL-chaaaa! The song abruptly ended. I yanked open my door and said, “ Hey, why’d you turn that off? And [in my best African-American-uncle-of-a-certain-age voice] what you know ‘bout HERE, MY DEAR?” He smiled, giggled and revealed that it’s part of the new GRAND THEFT AUTO 5 [[a PlayStation/Xbox game, for the uninitiated) playlists, among lots of other Marvin songs! I thought, “There really is hope for this generation.” It’s a start!

A few years ago, I was watching my nephew play GRAND THEFT AUTO. The Undisputed Truth's Smiling Faces Sometimes started to play during the game. I started to sing along to it and my nephew paused the game, turned around and just stared at me. I just shrugged and kept singing.

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Originally Posted by johnny_raven

A few years ago, I was watching my nephew play GRAND THEFT AUTO. The Undisputed Truth's Smiling Faces Sometimes started to play during the game. I started to sing along to it and my nephew paused the game, turned around and just stared at me. I just shrugged and kept singing.

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LOL! Reminds me of the time I gazed at my dad in the car, wondering how he knew all the words to The Spinners’ “Cupid.” I was like, my dad is so cool. 😁

OH YES, sans, GTA 5, haaaaaaa

I have actually played the game myself... it’s a pretty awful game [[I mean in terms of morality, apart from that it’s quite fun, lol) but they basically have an in-game radio station feature... so when you're driving along shooting at people, transporting illegal weaponry and performing bank heists [[and picking up the occasional hooker) you can listen to some sweet, sweet tunes :p

I actually remember finding my brother listening to "Smiling Faces Sometimes" on his phone and being absolutely GOBsmacked. I was so confused... until I realised it was on the game... :)

Now the stations you wanna listen to are the Soul and Funk ones if you fancy driving along with Marlena Shaw's "California Soul", Parliament's "Flashlight" or Rick James' "Give It To Me, Baby" in the background and OH MY yes I nearly forgot Smokey's masterful "Cruisin"... even that’s one there.

GTA 5 is probably one of the most popular, famous and critically-acclaimed video games of all time so it is pretty fantastic that there is all this music being introduced to peeps... :D

This conversation sorta reminds me of when the Shrek movies were popular. Remember all those cool '60s songs that were featured in the movies? What made me laugh is that a lot of the kids did not know that those songs were as old as they were; they assumed that they were new and were amazed that we old folks knew the lyrics!

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Originally Posted by johnny_raven

A few years ago, I was watching my nephew play GRAND THEFT AUTO. The Undisputed Truth's Smiling Faces Sometimes started to play during the game. I started to sing along to it and my nephew paused the game, turned around and just stared at me. I just shrugged and kept singing.

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Ahhhh, love it john

If you find a YouTube posting of the song half the comments on it are “Norman Whitfield was a genius” and “love this real soul music”... the rest are “who's here from GTA?!” and “this song is perfect for a drive-by shooting!”

Lol :)

Music goes 'round in circles!

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Originally Posted by Mark Desjardines

Music goes 'round in circles!

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Thank God for that! And God bless these video game companies and YouTube!