Search - Various Artists :: 25 #1 Hits From 25 Years

Wide variety of Motown styles!

Pieter | Johannesburg | 04/24/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This delectable collection of Number One hits doesn't give the full Motown picture, but it's a wonderful listening experience. It includes those addictive hook-laden Supremes songs You Can't Hurry Love and Baby Love, the smooth funk of The Temptations' Just My Imagination and Papa Was A Rollin' Stone, plus the great vocals of The Four Tops in I Can't Help Myself and Reach Out I'll Be There. Marvin Gaye represents the more serious (What's Going On) and more sensual side (Let's Get It On) of Tamla, while the piping voices of The Jackson Five shine through on I Want You Back and ABC. Eddie Kendricks gets funky on Keep On Truckin' and Stevie Wonder dos the same on Superstition, while the big soul ballad is represented by Thelma Houston's Don't Leave Me This Way and Aint No Mountain High Enough by Diana Ross. From Motown's late 70s/early 80s come the gentle ballads Three Times A Lady by The Commodores and Endless Love by Lionel Ritchie & Diana Ross, as well as Rick James' wild funk in the form of Give It To Me Baby. So there's a wide variety of styles in these number one hits, but my personal favourite is Smoky Robinson's Tears Of A Clown. For those wishing to hear the very best of Motown, I suggest getting a box set or the 2-disc Motown Ultimate Hits Collection so you don't miss out on all the incredible classics that may not have made it to number one, but will live forever in the annals of music, like Dancing In The Street by Martha and the Vandellas, plus Gladys Knight's work for this famous label and others too numerous to mention."