Gordy to the max

In a few weeks, there will apparently be a six-CD set of the complete Motown singles, both A and B sides, including alternate takes as appropriate — Berry Gordy, in those days, had a habit of pulling a track and then reissuing it with revisions to see if it might do better — for the period 1959 to 1961.

There will be subsequent boxes for the years 1962, 1963, and so on, all the way through 1972. This is a staggering amount of music, with, considering it's going to be twelve box sets and more than 50 CDs, an equally-staggering price tag. I have the majority of the chart hits already, but I really don't see how I can pass this up: there are, I know, tracks by big names that I've never heard — the Supremes' "Your Heart Belongs to Me," their first pop-chart record (Motown 1027) in 1962, comes immediately to mind — and more intriguingly, tracks I don't recognize at all. Inasmuch as it was wholly unlike the Gordy machine to issue throwaway tracks on 45, I have to assume that almost everything here is worth having, and will have to exercise the MasterCard accordingly.