According to our extensive research on the internet and Sony's media release on the game, Motown was a record company founded in 1959, making 2009 its 50th anniversary. The record label was the first to be owned by an African-American, and mainly featured African-American artists, many of whom achieved major success with hits that often combined traditional soul with contemporary pop structures. Besides the history lesson, this era of music spawned some exceptionally diverse and catchy tunes, and most of the songs captured on this disk made their way to the top of the charts.
As with every other version of the series, SingStar: Motown lets you sing along to the tracks on the disk while also giving you access to all of the downloadable content you have spent ridiculous amounts of money on. But as we've mentioned a half a dozen times before, you still can’t simply download SingStar: Motown to your hard drive. Instead you have to swap disks. Urgh. To swap a disk, press the Select button at the song selection screen and do your thing. While we take this compromise as being better than nothing, it’s still disappointing and really hurts the evolution of the series.
However, the gameplay itself remains as simple and as polished as ever. You can sing alone, sing in a head-to-head battle, sing in a duet if the song allows it, pass the microphone and a number of other challenges. The core gameplay continues to be a winner and it's a great way to spend an evening with friends or – if you’re so inclined – to sing to your dog, Captain Cuddles. Simply match the on-screen pitch and score more points than your opponent, or beat the high scores already set. You do this by matching the on-screen horizontal bars to your pitch, with the lyrics displayed at the bottom of the screen as the song’s music clip plays in the background.
How about we all dress the same, slick our hair and grow tiny mustaches. The ladies will go nuts for us.
Unlike many of the other SingStar track packs released recently, SingStar: Motown is all killer and no filler. The rather impressive line-up is:
• David Ruffin - Put A Little Love In Your Heart
• Diana Ross & The Supremes - Reflections
• Jimmy Ruffin - What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted
• Lionel Richie - My Destiny
• Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Jimmy Mack
• Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Nowhere To Run
• Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
• Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?
• Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston - It Takes Two
• Mary Wells - My Guy
• Rick James - Super Freak
• Smokey Robinson - Being With You
• Smokey Robinson And The Miracles - The Tracks Of My Tears
• Stevie Wonder - For Once In My Life
• The Commodores - Brick House
• The Commodores - Easy
• The Contours - Do You Love Me
• The Four Tops - Reach Out I'll Be There
• The Isley Brothers - This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)
• The Jackson 5 - ABC
• The Miracles - Love Machine
• The Supremes - You Can't Hurry Love
• The Temptations - Get Ready
• The Temptations - Papa Was A Rollin' Stone
• The Velvelettes - Needle In A Haystack
In addition the PlayStation 3 version has five extra tracks, which is a bit of a shame for PlayStation 2 owners, as these are some of the better songs on the disk:
• The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back
• Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Dancing In The Street
• The Supremes - Stop In The Name Of Love
• Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
• The Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)
So that’s it in a nutshell – it’s SingStar and it’s Motown. The songs are great fun to sing – nearly everyone will recognise them and most will enjoy them. We strongly recommend getting some friends together, grabbing an afro wig, and popping this one into your Sony machine of choice. It’s as easy as 1-2-3 and Sunday morning.
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