Following the history of Motown turned out to be a bit obscure, as I always viewed it as a musical movement predominately dominated by African Americans in the 60’s and 70’s, but what I found was a bit contradictory. When searching the words Motown music on google Ngram the results showed a start of references around 1966 and a peak around 2004 followed by a deep decline. While these statistics seem odd since Motown did not peak in 2004, I believe the references did peak because of the amount of works being published about Motown in the early 2000. A 1988 article in the USA Today suggests that Motown peaked in the late 60’s. Another interesting thing I found while researching were the results for Motown Records. I am not sure if the majority of Motown music came from this record label, but the same USA Today article seems to suggest this. In the article artists like George Michael cite the importance of Motown stating: “Soul music is a sound track to people’s lives, and no music has had a greater impact on my career than the artists of Motown.” Although the genre may be gone, its legacy lives on as you can see a Motown influence in some of todays pop and R&B.

Bibliography

Zimmerman, David. “Signed, Sealed, Delivered — Motown is Sold.” USA TODAY (Pre-1997 Fulltext), Jun 29, 1988, https://search.proquest.com/docview/306054539?accountid=14541 (accessed March 28, 2018).