Motown 25: Yesterday Today Forever

Motown is arguably the most important and successful label of its time. No other label has brought such an impressive Mount Rushmore of Superstars to the fore. From Stevie Wonder to Diana Ross to Marvin Gaye to Michael Jackson to Smokey Robinson to The Supremes, The a Temptations, The Four Tops, The Miracles and The Jackson 5!!! And that's just the first string leaving off Lionel Richie, Rick James, The Commodores, etc. In 1983, this music conglomerate gathered nearly their entire roster (past and present) to celebrate its 25th Anniversary."Motown 25" not only saluted its laudable accomplishments, but, also created a wildly entertaining 3 hours to talent and grand showmanship. It became the water cooler conversation topic for weeks on end in the early days of home video recording.Marvin Gaye, gave an emotional dialogue before a truly touching rendition of one of the greatest songs/albums of all time...the immensely relevant, "What's Goin' On", The Temptations battled The Four Tops in a grand sing-off that triggered a soldout tour that is still produced 30 years later, Diana "Queen of Motown" gave the first spontaneous exciting moment as she made an unplanned appearance during Adam Ant's weird and wondrous rendition of "Where Did Our Love Go?", Smokey Robinson floated in and out with great performances as Stevie rocked the house from "Uptight" to songs from "Songs in the Key of Life", Richard Pryor effortlessly hosted the evening with humor and cleverness....though Diana reluctantly joined a tad hefty Cindy Birdsong and a wicked witch marywilson, determined to cause controversy as she had begun hinting the rotten fruit of her poisin pen and most of all, Michael and Jermaine Jackson reunited with The Jackson 5 before a spine-thrilling, amazingly brief but stunning take on the very Motown-sounding "Billie Jean".All this was due to the vision of the master, Mr. Berry Gordy who the night was dedicated to!To top it off, "Motown 25" broke all Neilsen records winning the week (Motown's 2nd Special to accomplish this feat) and won an amazing 14 Emmy Nods winning the coveted "Best Music & Variety Special"!This 3-DVD package transports you back to 1983 with pure entertainment sans MTV editing.......an iconic moment not just in music history, but, in entertainment history in general!!!

Words can't even explain (but I'll try!) how excited I was to hear that FINALLY after over 30 years, Motown 25 would get a proper DVD release.I literally grew up watching this special, when I was a kid, my parents taped the original tv broadcast on VHS and I was absolutely obsessed with it. This was the music I was growing up to. The Temptations, Diana, Marvin, Smokey, and of course, Michael. I can't even tell you how many times I watched Michael sing Billie Jean and twirl across that stage, rewinding the tape over and over studying each of his movies. And for the last 30 years, this was all I had to watch these amazing performances. An old VHS tape (this tape was literally the only reason why I even still owned a VCR player) that was actually a year older than me.When I saw the release that Motown 25 would finally be brought to DVD, I was in tears (yes, literally). The program is exactly how I've always remembered it. The first disc is the actual program (with some extended performances not shown on the original airing), and extras detailing the making of the special (if you like behind the scenes stuff like I do, you'll enjoy this). I purchased the 3 disk version, which I highly enjoyed as I love behind the scenes talk. If you're not into hearing people reminiscence, then you're better off just purchasing the 1 disk version.It may sound a little silly, but this program meant a lot to me growing up, and it still does. This is a beautiful presentation and highly recommended for anyone who is a fan of Motown, Michael Jackson or music history.

Fantastic performances by all of Motown's important artists of the time. But I would agree with at least one other reviewer that the 1-DVD version (available from Amazon for $17 at this writing, and from other vendors on this site for as little as $10) is quite sufficient. The interviews and other trivia on the 3-DVD version are, IMHO, not worth the additional $11-18 you have to pay to get them -- and the 6-DVD set that Time-Life is currently selling for $80 (!) is just ridiculous. The only disc that you're going to watch more than once is the performance disc itself -- so buy that one by itself, save some money, and enjoy.Update, February 2016: I noticed that Time-Life is once again promoting its 6-disc set, with emphasis on Michael Jackson's first performance of the "moonwalk". "We can't show it to you here," they say. Of course not -- you wouldn't buy anything on the strength of that primitive, laughable version, filmed long before MJ perfected it, and so brief that you'll miss it entirely if you blink. The best performance of the show, IMO, is Marvin Gaye's; and it's my favorite because his genius is so underrated today, and because his life ended, tragically, so soon thereafter. So my original review stands: Buy the single DVD, unless you simply must know every bit of production trivia the producers could dredge up; and enjoy great, vintage performances by the original Motown stars in their heydays, including MJ -- despite his early, clumsy moonwalk attempt.

Leider kann ich die DVD gar nicht beurteilen, weil ich sie in Deutschland nicht anschauen kann !!! Die Regionalcode stimmt anscheinend nicht .....

Betreft een regio code die niet in Nederland bestaat. Dus kan niet afgespeeld worden. Staat niet aangegeven op de buitenkant van de aankoop. Bleek eerst toe de dvd in de dvd speler ging. Raar dat Amazon Nederland dit verkoopt

Hubby is a Motown freak and specifically requested this for Christmas. He was very pleased. Gotta love Amazon, they have everything!

I find it very, very entertaining. Those were the days when all begun, when truly gifted artist existed, unlike the mediocre ones of these days.To watch the `Special Features` (disc 2-3) is as important as the main show. It gives lots of interesting background-information.`Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever` was a 1983 live show (at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Pasadena, California) celebrating 25 years of `Motown Record Company` (founded in 1958, Detroit, Michigan then moved to Los Angeles, California in 1972).Motown was founded to promote black-american music-artists and was the launch-pad to Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Jackson 5 and lots of others.`White` record-companies were reluctant to promote black-artists (but they were good at stealing their songs and record them with white artists).This DVD is a tribute to the original performers.

MOTOWN　25の白眉である、故マービン・ゲイのリハーサル風景を、まさか見られるなんて！これだけでも購入した価値がありました。