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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Motown

recording label launched 1960 by Berry Gordy Jr., from Mo(tor) Town, perhaps based on Motor City, a nickname for Detroit attested by 1911.

Wikipedia
Motown

Motown is both a style of music and an American record company. The record company was founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960, in Detroit, Michigan. The name, a portmanteau of motor and town, has also become a nickname for Detroit. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as an African American-owned record label that achieved significant crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its subsidiary labels (including Tamla Motown, the brand used outside the US) were the most successful proponents of what came to be known as the Motown Sound, a style of soul music with a distinct pop influence. During the 1960s, Motown achieved spectacular success for a small record company: 79 records in the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100 record chart between 1960 and 1969.

Gordy relocated Motown to Los Angeles in 1972, and there it remained an independent company until June 28, 1988, when Gordy sold the company to MCA and Boston Ventures (which took over full ownership of Motown in 1991). Motown was then sold to PolyGram in 1994, before being sold again to MCA Records' successor, Universal Music Group, when it acquired PolyGram in 1999.

Motown spent much of the 2000s as a part of the Universal Music subsidiaries Universal Motown and Universal Motown Republic Group, and headquartered in New York City. From 2011 to 2014, Motown was a part of The Island Def Jam Music Group division of Universal Music. On April 1, 2014, Universal Music Group announced the dissolution of Island Def Jam; subsequently Motown relocated back to Los Angeles to operate under the Capitol Music Group. It now operates out of the landmark Capitol Tower.

Motown (album)

Motown is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Michael McDonald. The album was released on June 24, 2003, by Universal Music International and Motown.

Usage examples of "motown".

Outspan was very embarrassed up in his bedroom trying to strum along to the Motown time.

Italian food and the level of noise, a mixture of youthful voices and Motown coming from the jukebox in the back of the room.

After she left for Motown was when Mommy Terror started locking troublesome, hyperkinetic me in the basement.

Gentle's claque of doo-wopping Motown cabinet-puppets have purple dresses and matching lipstick and nail polish, and bouffants so blindingly Afrosheened that there had been special lighting and film-speed problems in the custodial closet: SEC.

Her pleasure was to sing along with Motown recordings and do the steps and gestures accompanying the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Syreeta Wright, all the oldies.

I curse the driver but an old Motown song from the sixties, maybe it's the Supremes, plays muted, up front, the sound blocked by the fiberglass partition.