I liked the Temptations, but most Motown CDs sound like crap. Or, at least, they did. I don’t know if it’s because of the quality of the original recordings or their transfer to digital.
Motown’s recording studio was the basement of a house.
A lot of remixing has gone on and seems like nothing sounds like the original anymore. I believe the Funk Brothers may have played on more number 1’s than any studio band. I love watching the studio band history videos of the “Wrecking” Crew, Motown, Muscle Shoals, and Chess records, to name a few. I remember staying up late listening to my radio picking up stations out of New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Detroit. I love the music from the 50’s and 60’s mostly, although the band I play in does plays music from the 20’s - 40’s (which I like, also).
from allmusicguide.com:
‘...[Universal Music Group] had its own Internet-only label, Hip-O Select, which finally provided an avenue for the release of The Complete Motown Singles, which was launched after a long, long wait in early 2005 with the six-disc set Vol. 1: 1959-1961. It was the first installment of a planned 12-volume series of box sets that would cover all Motown singles, including all variations of the singles and all of the label’s subsidiaries, from 1959 to 1972, when the label moved its home office from Detroit to Los Angeles. All the songs would be presented in their original single form (usually meaning a mono mix), transferred from vinyl if necessary (since master tapes for many of the rarities have vanished), and each box would be packaged as a deluxe hardcover book, with a reproduced 45 of an original Motown hit incorporated as part of the cover artwork, while the inside would contain rare photos and contain a wealth of information in the track-by-track notes by Bill Dahl and Keith Hughes. In short, it’s a lavish, ambitious series, and a pricey one as well...’
Original recordings, almost certain.