What was the first number one song for Motown?
In the early 1960s, music fans were still getting used to the modern idea of pop music. Most people were interested in hearing a catchy tune when it came on the radio, but by the time the British Invasion kicked the doors down, it was clear that the rock revolution that Chuck Berry and Little Richard kickstarted wasn’t a fluke any longer. While rock and roll was all well and good, Motown Records was the one label bringing soul onto the pop charts.
It’s not like there hadn’t been soul artists before the Detroit record label opened its doors. Ray Charles had already started breaking into the mainstream when making his various takes on jazz, blues, and even country, but this was the first time that a label was unapologetically indebted to soul, eventually creating the kind of institution that seemed to pump out hits the same way that the city pumped out cars.
But if someone approaches everything like a business, it’s about more than finding someone who can write a decent tune. Even if Smokey Robinson had one of the greatest voices of his generation, he had enough foresight to realise when some of his tunes weren’t suited to his voice, eventually giving songs away to everyone from Temptations to The Four Tops. Before people like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder came in, though, the label needed a song to model their sound around.
While The Marvelletes were one of a number of phenomenal girl groups working for the label, their vocal style wasn’t all that different from what people were hearing from the traditional pop stations. So when they came out with the same kind of love song that pop fans were used to with a more innocent twist, it wasn’t exactly hard for them to get their foot in the door.
So, what was the first Motown number one hit?
While The Marvellettes might not be spoken of in the same breath as The Temptations and The Miracles as often as they should, they were responsible for getting ‘Please Mr Postman’ to the top of the charts in 1961. Compared to the traditional doo-wop songs happening around the same time, this soulful take on the traditional heartache song was enough for The Beatles to fall in love with it, eventually doing their own version of the tune on With The Beatles.
For a label that has been so revered in pop history, though, the song never made the major dent that most would think, only spending one week at the top spot before falling off the charts. But getting to that top spot once was more than enough, and that left the floodgates open for stars to start taking their own soulful tunes to the hit parade.
Which Motown song spent the most weeks at number one?
Ever since the early 1960s, Motown proceeded to spread out until they had bonafide superstars on nearly every track. Outside of giving birth to ‘The King of Pop’ once The Jackson 5 hit it big, everyone from Lionel Richie to Marvin Gaye to Stevie Wonder helped open people’s eyes to what soul music could be on a grand scale, even if not everything they made was suited to be played on stations that often.
Even going into the 1990s, the label was still home to one of the biggest acts in the world, Boyz II Men. Outside of notching up blockbuster duets with Mariah Carey on ‘One Sweet Day’, the 1990s icons still hold the record for the most number of weeks at number one by a Motown artist, spending 13 weeks at the top for ‘End of the Road’ and then outdoing themselves with ‘I’ll Make Love To You’ in 1994 with 14 weeks.
However, the raw sales are merely a footnote in what getting to number one meant for Motown Records. Anyone can be at the right place at the right time and find a footing at the top spot, but hearing something this soulful be accepted by the mainstream was what helped people realise the kind of magic that came from putting a little bit more heart into their material.
