Executive Committee Meeting 10-15-24

President's Report

Page 85 of 95

MOTOWN AND MUSIC

Motown and Music If you had to single out an American city instrumental in the history of what we might call modern music, Detroit wouldn't necessarily be the first name that springs to mind. Yet it was at the heart of the temple to the automobile that trends, labels, and artists were born that would change the face of the music world. The Motown Label

such as the mercurial Lester Bangs and the cultural critic, Greil Marcus. In fact, this was the magazine that coined the term heavy metal , a genre which first started making noise in the heart of Detroit, on the back of the guitar riffs of Ted Nugent, Grand Funk Railroad, or the larger-than-life figure of Alice Cooper. For twenty years, the publication would be a privileged witness to the evolving musical trends before disappearing in 1989 only to be reborn in 2022— in the form of a website and a quarterly magazine. A New Wave of Rappers This eclecticism—also fueled by the unbridled funk born of the limitless imagination of musician George Clinton, head of Parliament and Funkadelic—is one of the hallmarks of the city’s music scene. Fittingly therefore, on the cusp of the 21st century, this city was also the birthplace of the rap star and iconoclast Eminem —rebel to some, sad clown to others—and of the duo The White Stripes. With this group, the ever versatile Jack White and his feminine alter-ego Meg showed themselves to be heirs to the century old unadorned blues. Major players in the umpteenth resurrection of rock music, they even inadvertently came up with a hit Seven Nation Army that would continue to resonate in sports stadiums around the world, with its catchy intro: “Doo, doo doo doo doo DOOOOO doo”. The duo tends

to eclipse all the other great bands out there, such as The Dirtbombs, The Come Ons or Electric Six, with their urgent and invigorating sounds. Not satisfied with resting on the laurels of its prestigious past—with museums telling the tale of some of these sagas, Detroit is now the crucible of a dark rap tackling harsh realities, with Tee Grizzley and Sada Baby as its leading lights. This is clear proof that, after decades of creativity, this city, immortalized by Bowie as early as 1973 in the song Panic In Detroit , still has plenty of power under its hood. T Detroit Historical Museum, p. 44, Motown Historical Museum, p. 56, Exhibit 3000, p. 54.

is techno, a music genre perhaps inspired by the European electronic music scene but which is resolutely future-oriented. Embodied in its early days by the Holy Trinity formed by Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson, then by the mysterious agitators of Underground Resistance, it first took over the dance floors of niche clubs before attaining international popularity that changed the face of popular music. Rock and Roll Attitude Detroit–and its surrounding suburbs–is also the birthplace of blazing rock and roll, the soundtrack of an angry city and another America for which the dream has paled. Led by the rubber limbed and inexhaustible Iggy Pop , The Stooges cut three edgy albums between the late 1960s and early 1970s, considered to be the template for the punk movement, and found a brand ambassador in David Bowie. Its contemporaries, the group MC5 —the “M” and the “C” the initials of “Motor City”—tore up the playbook with Kick Out the Jams , a first album shot through with the spirit of rebellion, and steeped in primitive anger and political and libertarian exhortation. It was at the same time that the “only rock'n'roll magazine in America” came onto the scene, the legendary Creem , whose offices featured fabled chroniclers

Without Berry Gordy , a one-time boxer who became a composer and then boss of the historic Motown label, and whose name proudly declaims its origins, as the contraction of “Motor Town”, soul music would no doubt have far less soul. From the 1960s onwards, the label's songwriters and composers came up with catchy tunes immortalized by male and female bands and performers (The Supremes with Diana Ross , The Four Tops, Martha & The Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson Five, to name a few), crystallizing teenage love in their inimitable fashion and coming to represent “the sound of young America”, thereby transforming

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Detroit into “Hitsville USA”! The Home of Techno

Twenty years later, Michigan's city of industry would be moving to the underground beat of the minimal, robotic, and repetitive music that

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The legendary Motown sound.