Various: Summer of Motown

his is a covermount CD that came with Uncut in 2004. I don't buy Uncut very often; it seems a good magazine when I do get it, but I already struggle to keep up with Word and The Wire. I'm not sure what decided me to buy this one: it may have been the CD, as there's nothing among the features that would have particularly caught my eye (no Neil Young exclusives).

OK, so it's Motown, and you can't knock Motown. However, this compilation is designed to leave you wanting more. It's part of a tie-in with Universal and HMV, both of whom have large spreads inside the magazine. Daryl Easlea and someone else from Universal won a MusicWeek award for Best Catalogue Marketing Campaign for this. I wouldn't want to knock Mr Easlea, either, as he wrote an excellent book on Chic. It's good to have these freebies, and nice sleevenotes inside the magazine. The only thing that leaves me slightly uneasy is the smell of advertorial about the whole thing.

There was a website as part of the campaign as well. I don't know if this is it.

MusicBrainz entry for this album