Motown : Music, Money, Sex, and Power
Author: Gerald L. Posner
List Price: $24.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0375500626
Publisher: Random House (24 December, 2002)
Sales Rank: 74,891
Average Customer Rating: 2.76 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Motown: Berry, Relationships, Schemes, & Amok-isms
Books and movies on the Funk Brothers and Motown artists enrapture readers and viewers with Motown's mobilized creativity and the never-again equalled gems. This book, Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power, by Gerald Posner is a great read with a different perspective. It shows the toils, foibles, relationships, un-substantiated schemes, and amok-isms behind the skin of the Motown company ("Beauty is only skin deep." Yawn, yes. But, it is true.). Rather than enrapturing, this book evokes, at times, admiration and, at times, revulsion. The book suggests that Berry Gordy's greatnesses helped build the beautiful Motown and his weaknesses gave Motown cardiac arrest to the abandonment of the Detroit musicians, artists, and the world-wide listening public. The reader infers from this book that Berry Gordy, perhaps alone, landed on his feet - a rich man of questionable conscience with many good people left as his road kill. Read this book (and others) to see whether you share in my perception or not.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Outsider Tries to Look In
One has to wonder what the point is behind this analysis of Motown. The problems can be seen right at the beginning of the book, as Posner describes in the preface that he was unable to interview virtually anybody. His main source of information is court records from the numerous lawsuits against Motown from artists trying to get their royalties. Therefore this is a very biased and lopsided book. First, Posner is clearly not a music writer and has extremely little understanding of the classic music of Motown and the social forces that shaped it and were shaped by it. When attempting to describe the sounds he can only use shallow adjectives like "funky" or "sharp." Posner instead focuses on the business behind the Motown phenomenon, as Berry Gordy started with $800 and built one of the greatest record labels in history, but then was unable to prevent its slow and painful downfall. However, as noted above, Posner mainly uses legal documents as evidence, so his stance on business practices is tilted toward Gordy's enemies from the outset. Worst is Posner's coverage of individuals, especially Gordy himself. Since Posner admits that he interviewed nobody, then his descriptions of a person's private thoughts and beliefs, which he attempts frequently, can only be copied straight from other biographies with little surrounding context. Posner also easily joins the parade of disparagement against Diana Ross, who may just deserve people's wrath, but you should be suspicious when a person is criticized but is not there to give their side of the story. Posner also gets in over his head when trying to analyze the complex personalities of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. Finally his slow-moving writing style doesn't give you the incentive to turn the pages, and the end of the story is appallingly weak with a halfhearted attempt to wrap up Motown's place in history.
If you are interested in the classic music of Motown and its talented stars, go elsewhere, please. This book does a better job of analyzing the business of Motown but is too fragmented and second-hand for true believability. If you're interested in that subject, also go elsewhere.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Sadly inaccurate work
This book was a disappointment because so much of the information was wrong. Page after page this book was loaded with errors that even the casual Motown fan can find. If you don't know anything about Motown, I can see how someone would enjoy it, but why learn about a company with wrong information? I would recommend the books by Berry Gordy (founder), Mary Wilson (Supreme), Martha Reeves (Vandellas), Jack Ashford (Funk Brothers), Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Peter Rivera (Rare Earth), and others first. This is where much of Mr. Posner gets his information from, before he confused many of the facts.
Book Index