What is the best-selling Motown album of all time?
Motown has forever been an institution of all great R&B music.
Even in an era when rock and roll was thriving as one of the most popular genres in the world, everyone from The Jackson 5 to Marvin Gaye was holding their own with their fair share of classics. But now and then, one magical artist has a grip on the world no one else can touch.
Then again, it’s not like there wasn’t some stiff competition in the world of Motown, either. Berry Gordy normally knew a hit when he heard one, but in Gaye, he had someone who could make socially conscious lyrics, whereas on the other side, you had Michael Jackson, who had already turned himself into a one-man hit machine before he had even hit puberty. At this point, excellence was something that was expected, and even if someone wasn’t the best singer in the world, it was better to focus on the quality of the song.
As the 1970s came to a close, Motown was going through a strange transitional period. Michael Jackson may have left the label to focus on his solo career, but considering what they were spewing out at the dawn of MTV, it was clear that they had yet to find their footing in the world of music videos. If there was one saving grace during that time, though, it was Lionel Richie.
Richie was already one of the hardest-working men in the business when working with The Commodores, but when striking out on his own, he set himself up nicely entering the next decade. He already had a duet track record working with people like Diana Ross on ‘Endless Love’, but after becoming one of the biggest stars of the 1970s, he got a massive makeover when he embraced synthesisers.
So, what Motown album sold the most?
While the glory days of Motown featured James Brown-esque rhythms and the occasional orchestral backing, Can’t Slow Down filtered all of that through a much more 1980s lens. And with the music videos for ‘All Night Long’ and ‘Running with the Night’ becoming some of the earliest soul songs on the channel, Richie had helped get Motown’s foot in the door by keeping his track record as solid as ever.
Then again, Motown probably had one of its former clients to thank for getting in MTV’s good graces. There had already been some concern over the fact that the channel was primarily focused on rock artists, but when Michael Jackson’s label threatened to pull all of their artists from the channel if they didn’t play the videos for ‘Billie Jean’, that blew the doors wide open for more interesting soul acts to come to the forefront.
Can’t Slow Down eventually earned Richie the best-selling Motown album of all time at over 10million copies, but he had much more on his mind. If he was going to be in the spotlight, he was going to use it for good, and outside of future ballads like ‘Say You Say Me’ and ‘Ballerina Girl’, Richie’s ‘We Are the World’ will forever be one of the most important moves he made throughout his career.
His introduction to the 1980s may not have been the greatest record in the world, but it stood as a statement above everything else. There was a place for soul music in the era of MTV, and if people could bang their heads to people like Def Leppard, they could get their groove on listening to ‘All Night Long’ and cry their hearts out to ‘Hello’ as well.
