What's not brought up is how Motown actually struggled in 1968, after four banner years where they dominated pop music. The loss of HDH cut the label VERY deep. Smokey wasn't really hitting anything out of the ballpark for other acts at that point and after "I Second That Emotion", he and the Miracles wouldn't have another big top ten hit until "Baby, Baby Don't Cry" in 1969 [[and in '69, the Miracles REALLY struggled! They BARELY cracked the pop top 40 throughout the year, that's not enough profit from songs that peak at number 32 or 33 or 37. After Marvin and Tammi scored five top 20 hits in a row, things had slowed to a crawl partially due to Tammi's illness and the fact that the songs released afterwards didn't really perform well as they probably should've. Marvin himself hadn't hit the top ten as a solo artist since "Ain't That Peculiar" in late 1965. Three years without a huge solo hit was not great business and Berry didn't help by insisting on Marvin releasing boring ass songs like "Your Unchanging Love". Gordy didn't like the grittier Marvin, which is why "You" only reached 34. "Chained" was 32 and who knows how it would've done had Gordy decided at the last minute to finally release "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", which finally made Marvin a pop superstar and became the biggest hit of his career and put him at the top of the soul heap after the death of Otis Redding and James Brown's transition to funk. And ironically enough "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" ended up replacing "Love Child" at number one. I wonder how that made Marvin feel... probably petty like "I beat Miss Ross at something haha".
The Temptations and Stevie Wonder were probably the most consistent Motown hitmakers around this trying period [[1967-69) with Marvin being part of the triad keeping Motown afloat [[Norman Whitfield being responsible for the Tempts/Gaye's continued success while Stevie was then being produced by Hank Cosby and then began to produce on his own after his 18th birthday but still relied on Cosby as he definitely helped him to transition to the 70s better than most Motown artists, outside of Gaye, who settled into his rawer sound, which then paved the way for "What's Going On").
But everyone else who had been there at the very beginning and stayed throughout all the changes in the label by then - Marvelettes, Four Tops, Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, Supremes - either performed modestly or downright flopped or both and almost all were neglected by Motown staff that was putting all their money on the Supremes/Temptations TV specials while Gordy basically became obsessed with making Diana as big of a show business superstar as Barbra Streisand.
I think it was just the times weren't good for the "Sound of Young America". You go from being on top to suddenly having to tour your old hits just to eat. It happened that fast for many of the label's original roster. The Supremes somehow thrived on their live shows and dramatic costumes so they dealt with the chart/sales fallout better because they were the hugest singles act of all time on the label and could perform at the main theaters and halls and slightly bigger venues such as coliseums and stadiums [[when they were booked at pop festivals) because of the impact they made from 1964-67.
Even if HDH stayed, they probably wouldn't have been able to thrive in the late 60s either. "More Aretha, less Motown [[unless it's the Tempts, Marvin or Stevie)".
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