Certifying Motown’s Hits
THE NEVER-ENDING APPEAL OF GOLD AND PLATINUM
It remains one of the most recognisable and engaging photographs of Motown’s early days – even when as grainy as the one shown here.
The location was the bandstand of the Michigan State Fairgrounds, during the annual Rod-O-Rama show, and it was there during the last weekend of February 1961 that Berry Gordy presented his hit-making Miracles with a gold disc for “Shop Around.” Accompanying the Motown founder on stage were his sister, Loucye Wakefield, who was the company’s sales manager at the time, and Barney Ales, who worked for its Detroit distributor, Aurora, and was soon to join Gordy’s company.
“It was just an unbelievable moment,” Smokey Robinson later recalled, “and it was done so spontaneously for the Miracles and me, because we didn’t know about it. We had sung a couple of songs, and we were getting ready to sing ‘Shop Around.’ Berry interrupted the show and came up and presented us with the gold record. We were just flabbergasted.
‘We interrupt this show to…’
“Come on – a million records. We were teenagers. This was our most impossible dream coming true. That’s a moment in time right there.”
Years afterwards, Barney Ales confirmed most of the details for me – with the exception of the sales figure. “It didn’t sell a million copies,” he confessed. “There were lots of records that didn’t sell a million copies. But we gave out gold records even though they didn’t.”
Motown was hardly alone with that practice. In the wake of the rock & roll explosion, an increasingly prosperous music business had been dispensing gold discs to artists left, right and centre, using various criteria, some questionable. There was, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a proliferation of such awards “with no basis in fact, no method for verification or authentication.” While researching The Billboard Book of Gold & Platinum Records,” I was told by the association that “the veracity of all award claims [at that time] was held in disrepute in and outside the industry.”
And so, in March 1958, the RIAA introduced the certified gold record award, with claims of a million sales to be audited by independent accountants. For albums, the benchmark was $1 million in sales at manufacturer wholesale prices, based on one-third of the list price for each record. For singles, gold meant one million copies sold.
‘WHY DIDN’T YOU CONTACT US?’
When Hitsville U.S.A. began living up to its name with the Miracles and others, the firm was not an RIAA member – nor did it wish to be. To do so, record companies had to assign a percentage of their revenues to the organisation, to help it operate on members’ behalf across a range of industry issues. Members also had to submit to audits when applying for gold certifications. While these terms were acceptable to major labels such as RCA Victor, Capitol and Columbia, they were less attractive to small, independent labels, most of which had difficulty getting paid by their distributors, and didn’t want their books examined.
In Motown’s case, the problem ran deeper. In 1964, during its most successful year up to then, Berry Gordy’s second wife, Raynoma, had arranged to sell bootleg copies of Mary Wells’ “My Guy” to raise money for Jobete’s New York office, which she ran. Berry had refused to keep funding it, and she resorted to desperate measures. When the illegal activity was discovered, Miss Ray was arrested.
‘Grapevine’ goes gold, but not via the RIAA
Barney Ales, by then the head of Motown’s sales department, was present at the court hearing – and so was Henry Brief, executive secretary of the RIAA. “As I was leaving,” Ales remembered, “he said, ‘It’s great that you got them. We knew about it.’ I said, ‘So why didn’t you contact us?’ ”
Because, Brief replied, Motown was not an RIAA member. “I told him, ‘You knew someone was bootlegging our product but you didn’t contact us because we weren’t members? Telling us in advance would have made it worth joining.’ ” Ales was furious, promising Brief that the company would never sign up to the association as long as he was at Motown.
So for the entire 1960s and ’70s, it never had its many million-selling singles independently verified. But when Jay Lasker became the label’s president in 1980, that changed. He saw publicity value and industry stature in RIAA certifications in what was by then a more sophisticated business, and Motown began applying for gold and platinum awards for singles and albums.
The first such 45 to be gold-endorsed by the RIAA (in July 1981) was Smokey Robinson’s “Being With You,” which had reached the peak of the Cash Box Top 100 and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 that summer. It was followed by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie’s “Endless Love,” which had spent nine weeks atop both magazines’ charts. In October, the RIAA certified the duet as platinum (two million copies sold) as well as gold. The third Motown 45 to gain RIAA gold that year was Ross’ 1980 hit, “Upside Down.”
During the ’80s, nine Motown singles were certified by the trade association before Berry Gordy sold his company. As for albums, there were also a significant quantity which officially went gold, platinum and (in a few cases) multi-platinum during that same period – which will be the subject of a separate WGB edition in future.
Once Motown was in the corporate hands of MCA and Boston Ventures from 1988-93, there were no further RIAA certifications for its singles. Then in 1997, four years after PolyGram had acquired the firm, gold and platinum recognition returned in a big way. This time, the honourees included the Supremes (for “Baby Love,” “Stop! In The Name Of Love” and “Someday We’ll Be Together”) as well as the Temptations (“My Girl”), Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations (“I’m Gonna Make You Love Me”) and the Four Tops (“Reach Out I’ll Be There”).
Their first golden moment
In 1998, Universal Music Group acquired Motown by way of Seagram’s purchase of PolyGram, and another round of RIAA gold and platinum prizes were dispensed. No fewer than 15 of the Temptations’ singles and 17 of their albums were certified in one batch in October ’99, and the quintet was presented with a special plaque at a ceremony in New York with Motown’s then-president, Kedar Massenburg, and UMG’s Harry Weinger.
By contrast, the least-awarded hitmakers to this date included Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops, the Commodores and a solo Diana Ross. As noted above, the Supremes had three gold garlands, plus one for a duet with the Temptations – but none for their first smash, “Where Did Our Love Go.”
Still, at least one other act from the past was not entirely overlooked. When Kat Anderson of the Marvelettes was interviewed for a 2004 biography of the group, she complained to author Marc Taylor that “we have never received a gold record for any of our records that may have been gold, and they have been out long enough and have been re-released enough that they are well over a million.” That October, Motown secured gold for “Please Mr. Postman” and “Don’t Mess With Bill.”
Anyway, the detail is below: a chronology of all the Motown singles which have been RIAA-certified to date for gold (G), platinum (P) and multi-platinum sales in the United States. They are ranked by certification date (day/month/year). One asterisk denotes a digital release and two denotes a ringtone.
Until January 1, 1989, singles had to sell one million to qualify for gold, after which the criteria was reduced to 500,000 copies. From then on, it was platinum which required sales of one million singles, or multiples thereof.
7/7/1981: “Being With You,” Smokey Robinson (G)
16/10/1981: “Endless Love,” Diana Ross & Lionel Richie (G) (P)
16/12/1981: “Upside Down,” Diana Ross (G)
9/12/1982: “Truly,” Lionel Richie (G)
12/12/1983: “All Night Long (All Night),” Lionel Richie (G)
29/3/1984: “Somebody’s Watching Me,” Rockwell (G)
30/5/1984: “Hello,” Lionel Richie (G)
8/11/1984: “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” Stevie Wonder (G)
21/1/1986: “Say You, Say Me,” Lionel Richie (G)
12/9/1994: “Dancing In The Street,” Martha & the Vandellas (G)
7/8/1997: “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me,” Diana Ross & the Supremes & the Temptations (G) (P)
7/8/1997: “Someday We’ll Be Together,” Diana Ross & the Supremes (G) (P)
8/9/1997: “Baby Love,” The Supremes (G)
8/9/1997: “Stop! In The Name Of Love,” The Supremes (G)
8/9/1997: “My Girl,” The Temptations (G) (P)
8/9/1997: “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” The Four Tops (G)
12/10/1999: “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “You’re My Everything,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “I Wish It Would Rain,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “Cloud Nine,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “Run Away Child, Running Wild,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “I Can’t Get Next To You,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “Psychedelic Shack,” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “Ball Of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today),” The Temptations (G) (P)
12/10/1999: “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me),” The Temptations (G) (P)
12/10/1999: “Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are),” The Temptations (G)
12/10/1999: “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone,” The Temptations (G) (P)
12/10/1999: “Masterpiece,” The Temptations (G)
30/10/2000: “Get Ready,” Rare Earth (G)
21/10/2004: “Please Mr. Postman,” The Marvelettes (G)
21/10/2004: “Don’t Mess With Bill,” The Marvelettes (G)
6/6/2005: “Let’s Get It On,” Marvin Gaye (G)*
21/12/2005: “Brick House,” The Commodores (G)*
1/6/2006: “Super Freak (Part 1),” Rick James (G)*
1/6/2006: “Isn’t She Lovely,” Stevie Wonder (G)*
14/6/2006: “Let’s Get It On,” Marvin Gaye (G)**
25/6/2007: “Let’s Get It On,” Marvin Gaye (P)**
6/12/2024: “My Girl,” The Temptations (7P)*
2/5/2025: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (G) (P)*
2/5/2025: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (7P)*
Precious metal notes: the RIAA website obviously features the extensive gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards data of the past 67 years, including Motown past and present. There is one significant anomaly, however: all of the company’s gold-certified 1980-86 singles are shown on the site as having sold 500,000 copies. Yet the trade association’s award criteria for singles from 1958-88 was a minimum sale of one million copies. And given the list of those nine Motown gold hits, it’s hard to believe that they all didn’t sell a million. The company’s post-1988 gold certifications show the lower figure, of course, because by that time, the sales volume of physical singles had begun to decline industrywide.