Motown Records: The Hit Factory That Changed Music Forever

Few record labels have left their stamp on the industry quite like Motown. 

This assembly line churned out hit song after hit song in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. With a who’s-who roster — Marin Gaye, The Jackson 5, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder, among others — The Hitsville U.S.A. sign Gordy put on Motown’s front door became warranted. 

This episode is the story of Motown Records — it’s formula for success, what led to its decline, and where it stands today under Universal. I’m joined by friend of the pod, Zack O’Malley Greenburg. Here’s what we covered in this episode:

0:38 Berry Gordy’s origin story

8:08 Motown museum in Detroit

9:20 Cultivating a culture of creativity

13:05 Shifting the sound of Black music

20:12 Motown’s knack for discovering talent 

34:29 The beginning of the decline

36:12 80’s decade of transition

39:48 Post-Gordy struggles

45:51 Motown’s uncertainty today

53:59 Best signing?

55:16 Best business move?

568:45 Dark horse move?

1:01:58 Biggest missed opportunity?

1:07:13 Motown big-screen picture

1:09:22 Berry Gordy won big

1:10:41 Who lost the most?

1:14:56 Zack’s Jay Z index

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Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Zack Greenburg: Berry Gordy created with Motown and sort of the Motown genre, which I think really like more than any label has become synonymous beyond just sort of like the name of label itself, you say Motown music, and a testament to the sound that he created,

[00:00:13] Dan Runcie Audio Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level.

[00:00:38] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: Today's episode is a deep dive into the one and only legendary Motown records. At its peak, Motown was the most successful black business in the country. It peaked at 30 million dollars of revenue in 1968 and Barry Gordy and his team assembled a sound. a unique genre of music that produced hit after hit after hit and Hitsville USA lived up to its promise.

So in this episode, we take you through the origins of how Motown came to be. What are some of the business principles and strategies that worked in its favor? And then what are some of the challenges that Motown faced too? It's now been 50 years since the peak of Motown. And this record label has had plenty of ups and downs and plenty of journeys that we went deep on in this episode. And I'm joined by Zach Greenburg He is a biographer of Jay Z and several others, and he also wrote about Michael Jackson. And in that he talked about Michael Jackson's time with Motown, especially in the Jackson 5. So we had a lot of fun in this one. So come take a trip down memory lane with us. Here's our episode on Motown.

[00:01:42] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we're back with another case study style episode, and we're going deep into Hitsville, USA. Motown, baby. Let's do this, Zack, I'm excited for this one.

[00:01:53] Zack Greenburg: Thanks for having me as always.

[00:01:55] Dan Runcie: Berry Gordy is so fascinating because At one point, this was the most successful black business. They're the most successful black entrepreneur in the country invented a genre.

And it's so hard to be able to do that. And that legacy still lives on today. We know so many record labels that have taken inspiration from what Berry Gordy built with Motown records, but let's start from the beginning. What inspired Berry Gordy to even want to get involved with music in the first place?

[00:02:23] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. So, you know, Berry Gordy, and his family were in the Detroit area, you know, a bunch of serial entrepreneurs, get a record shop early on, but he was actually like semi professional boxer coming up. And, think one thing led to another and you just kind of saw that, you know, there was a market that was not being served in music.

you know, certainly like the business was concentrated, on the coast and particularly in New York at that time, you know, eventually more in LA, but. you know, there was some stuff going on in Chicago. there was some regional acts, regional labels, things like that. But, you know, I think he just basically saw an opportunity, to start something.

And, you know, sort of in the way that if you look at, Richard Branson or Puffy or, you know, what are those types of entrepreneurs? It's almost It doesn't really matter what they get into. They find a way to make it work. and they're just always on the lookout for a new sector. That's, kind of, you know, right for some creative destruction, know, and some refreshing or some freshening, some revising, I don't know, whatever you would call it.

And, you know, in the case of Berry Gordy. Kind of amazingly, when you think about music over the past half century, he looked around and he thought, well, this is actually, this is a sector that is very promising amongst all the sectors that I could possibly get into. So, that's how Motown came to pass.

[00:03:36] Dan Runcie: That point about whether it's Diddy, Branson, Gordy, and I think a lot of the tech CEOs fall in this category as well. You're going to put them in any generation. And I do think that these people would have found a way to make things work. And that's the same point you're making, right? He saw an opportunity to music, but let's say he came 30 years later.

It could have been another aspect. Let's say he came today, probably could have been trying to do something in AI or even figure it out, how to make AI, be transformative with his music. And I think a lot of his work, whether you think about how he built derivative work or how he had this process with artists that we'll get into so much of it taps into, okay, here's an opportunity to optimize things.

Here's how we can make things work. And music just happened to be the format. He chose it.

[00:04:21] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And even, you know, when you think about it, he got started sort of mid century 30 years later, he was looking into other things, getting involved in film and TV. And You know, moving the business out West, but, you know, we'll get there eventually, but, he certainly did, you know, find other ways to extend the Motown brand as time went on.

[00:04:37] Dan Runcie: So he starts off, he has this record business and things go okay with that. specifically talking about the store. And that was a lot of it was connected a bit more from the family perspective, but then he ends up getting the job at Ford specifically working with that Lincoln mercury plant. And that's when he was only there for 2 years, but he then sees how the process works and the whole concept of Ford is, which is that assembly line process that Henry Ford has been famous for.

He sees that and then he taps back into his opportunities with music and he's like, okay. Okay, there's an opportunity to do the same with music. So he sees this assembly line, essentially have all these parts go through the inputs. And then the output, you get this car, he wanted to be able to pull some kid off the street, bring them into the Motown and bring them into this record label facility.

And then outcomes a star. And he felt like he had the ability to be able to create that type of dynamic. And it took some time to get there, but that's essentially what he did. And a lot of the creations of what we saw from Hitsville USA was that exactly.

[00:05:48] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And, he'll tell you that, I've interviewed him a couple of times. Once for Forbes, once for my book, Michael Jackson Inc, where he talked a lot about that. And, you know, he really has a formula, for making a hit song. And, you know, it's sort of like the song has to have a clear beginning, middle at an end. The chorus has to have a sort of grand arc that summarizes the song every time it happens.

And then there's a sort of like grand finale bridge ending thing that, brings it all together, always at the end you hear the artist shout out the song's name almost, you know, invariably one last time and you know, that's like pure marketing, right? And you think about it in those days, this great songs on, you're hearing it, but like, you know, maybe you're in the car, it's on the radio, maybe you're artist and a record player.

It's not popping up on your phone. So you know what it's called when you hear Michael Jackson shout out, I want you back at the end and I want you back. what you're going to go out and buy, you know what, you're going to call in, you know, to the radio station and ask them to play. So, it's very calculated, it really works and it's proven and, you know, if it sort of seems like, gosh. You know, this is like a cliche. This is obvious. I think part of it is because