Motown Japanese CD4's (information/release dates/catch all thread)

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steelydave

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For a few years now I've been trying to hunt down all 13 of the Motown Japanese CD4's (14 if you include the Rare Earth 'Get Ready' album which is actually on the Rare Earth label) without paying an arm and a leg for them and I now have 12 of the 13 (still looking for Jackson 5 Live and Rare Earth albums). I noticed something interesting on the actual labels of the LP's - they have a sequential numbering system apart from the CD4W-prefixed catalog number on the album jacket. I thought I'd collate them all because I wanted to see if there was an unissued/unused number that might account for the Marvin Gaye 'Live!' album which came out in the US on Q8 but never on CD-4 in Japan. It turns out there weren't any gaps in the numbering system, so I guess they never intended to put out Marvin Gaye 'Live!' on CD-4 in Japan, but what the list I've assembled does do is give you some insight in to when the albums that did come out were released.

All the albums have a phonographic copyright (P) with the release year, but for 7 of the albums I was able to find a short blurb with specific release dates on page 68 of Billboard Magazine from 23 Nov 1974 in an article called 'From THe Music Capitals Of The World - Tokyo':

"The music arm of JVC is rushing the initial release of Motown albums in CD-4. The first three are scheduled for release here Nov. 25, to be followed by two more Dec. 25 and another pair next Feb. 5. The motown recording artists include Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Jackson 5 and The Supremes..."

So I made this little table with all the information I collated for the obsessives that are out there like me who are interested in when this stuff actually came out:

LP CATALOG NUMBERQ8 CATALOG NUMBERCAT # ON LP LABELLP RELEASE DATEARTISTTITLE
QW-7022 (JVC Japan)
MOT4-7001​
LATE/73
Jackson 5 In Japan! (Recorded April 30th, 1973)
QW-7024 (JVC Japan)
MOT4-7002​
LATE/73
The Supremes In Japan! (Recorded June 3rd, 1973)
VQW-1003 (JVC Japan)
MOT4-7003​
11/25/74
The Temptations Live In Japan (Recorded December 13th, 1973)
MQ8-801-KT (Motown USA)
MOT4-7004​
11/25/74
Diana Ross Live at Caesar's
MOT4-7005​
11/25/74
Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye Diana & Marvin
MOT4-7006​
12/25/74
The Temptations 1990
MOT4-7007​
12/25/74
Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On
TQ8-333-KT (Tamla USA)
xx/xx/74
Marvin Gaye Live!
MOT4-7008​
02/05/75
The Jackson 5 Greatest Hits
MOT4-7009​
02/05/75
The Temptations All Directions
MOT4-7010​
??/??/75
Marvin Gaye What's Going On
MOT4-7011​
??/??/75
Diana Ross & The Supremes Greatest Hits
RAR4-7001​
??/??/75
Rare Earth Get Ready
MOT4-7012​
??/??/75
The Supremes & The Temptations TCB (Soundtrack)
MOT4-7013​
??/??/75
Diana Ross Last Time I Saw Him


I think what's most interesting is that it looks like the first two in the series (Jackson 5 & Supremes Live) were put out in late 1973 almost as a 'trial balloon' to see if there was sufficient interest in Motown quad mixes in Japan, and presumably there was, because the remainder of the titles did follow but not for more than a year afterward.

It's also my supposition that Motown did intend to release these in the US - as you can see the Diana Ross 'Live At Caesar's' title was the first non-'live in japan' title released, and it also saw release in the US as a Q8. I think Motown did the same kind of 'trial balloon' release of Q8's of the Diana Ross 'Live at Caesars' and Marvin Gaye 'Live!' albums but sales were probably poor enough that they didn't feel like releasing the remaining quad mixes they'd done was worth their time. The fact that the Marvin Gaye 'Live!' Q8 has more than 10 minutes shaved off it's running time (taking it down to barely over 30 minutes) says to me they prepared it with CD-4 in mind, because of the 'sandpaper quad' effect caused by inner groove distortion. If you see any of the Motown Japanese CD4's they have a huge amount of deadwax in the middle, presumably to avoid the problems associated with having the needle tracking any music close to the center of the disc. I suspect the fact that Motown was in some distress by 1975 probably contributed to the fact that they got out of quad so quickly too - it was seen as a failing format by that point, and Motown was probably looking for albums that were going to sell a million, not 10,000.

So I thought I'd start this thread as a catch-all for Motown related quad info/comments/etc. I've taken pictures (a la fredblue) of all my Motown quads (front/back/labels/inserts/etc). If there's any interest I'd be happy to put them on photobucket and post them in this thread.
 
Perhaps you could get Jon to let you put a Motown section in the labels pages. That way it would be easier to find in the future and be a constant resource. Thank yo for the offer. I am interested in getting the Motown CD4's at a reasonable cost too, after I get out of the doghouse for last month's quad filled credit card bill.:yikes
 
[Dead Photobucket image links removed April 2nd, 2020 - new QQ-hosted ones posted at the end of this thread.]

MOT4-7002 - 1973 - The Supremes - In Japan! (CD4W-7040)

MOT4-7003 - 1974 - Temptations - Live In Japan (CD4W-7069)

MOT4-7004 - 1974 - Diana Ross - Live At Caesar's (CD4W-7082)

MOT4-7005 - 1974 - Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye - Diana & Marvin (CD4-7087)

MOT4-7006 - 1974 - Temptations - 1990 (CD4W-7088)

MOT4-7007 - 1974 - Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On (CD4W-7089)

MOT4-7008 - 1975 - Jackson 5 - Greatest Hits (CD4W-7090)

MOT4-7009 - 1975 - Temptations - All Directions (CD4W-7091)

MOT4-7010 - 1975 - Marvin Gaye - What's Going On (CD4W-7092)

MOT4-7011 - 1975 - Diana Ross & The Supremes - Greatest Hits (CD4W-7093)

MOT4-7012 - 1975 - Supremes & The Temptations - TCB (CD4W-7106)

MOT4-7013 - 1975 - Diana Ross - Last Time I Saw Him (CD4W-7108)
 
Last edited:
DROOL... :p

Thanks Dave, just beautiful..
I'd dearly love to find the 2 x Temptations, 2 x Marvin Gaye's & the Jackson & Supremes studio Quads.. they're on the shopping list.
 
MOT4-7002 - 1973 - The Supremes - In Japan! (CD4W-7040)
56.jpg57.jpg59.jpg60.jpg65.jpg66.jpg61.jpg62.jpg63.jpg64.jpg
 
MOT4-7003 - 1974 - Temptations - Live In Japan (CD4W-7069)
50.jpg51.jpg54.jpg55.jpg52.jpg53.jpg

MOT4-7004 - 1974 - Diana Ross - Live At Caesar's (CD4W-7082)
44.jpg45.jpg48.jpg49.jpg46.jpg47.jpg
 
MOT4-7005 - 1974 - Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye - Diana & Marvin (CD4-7087)
35.jpg36.jpg39.jpg42.jpg43.jpg40.jpg41.jpg

MOT4-7006 - 1974 - Temptations - 1990 (CD4W-7088)
29.jpg30.jpg33.jpg34.jpg31.jpg32.jpg
 
MOT4-7011 - 1975 - Diana Ross & The Supremes - Greatest Hits (CD4W-7093)
67.jpg68.jpg71.jpg72.jpg69.jpg70.jpg

MOT4-7012 - 1975 - Supremes & The Temptations - TCB (CD4W-7106)
73.jpg74.jpg75.jpg82.jpg83.jpg78.jpg79.jpg80.jpg81.jpg
 
Resurrecting another old thread because I've done some housekeeping on it.

While this was originally just a thread for the Motown CD-4 albums, a couple of years ago previously-unknown Q8s of The Jackson 5 In Japan!, The Supremes In Japan! and The Temptations Live in Japan (click to see pictures of them) surfaced, so I've rejigged the table in the first post to reflect the CD-4 LPs that had either US or Japanese Q8 counterparts.

I've also reposted all of the pictures from the LPs that are in my collection that were originally in post #2, but have been unvailable since photobucket clamped down on third-party hotlinking. Previously they were all posted full-size, but QQ now supports a much nicer clickable-thumbnail posting style which I think makes it much easier to browse through them. Click any one to see a full-size version.

I also wanted to include this little snippet from Billboard I found:

billboard-1974-05-11_p3_Diana_Ross_Q8.jpg


Obviously one could conclude that the spokesman was actually referring to the Diana Ross & The Supremes Greatest Hits CD-4 that ended up coming out in Japan in 1975, but I think it's just as possible that they were considering releasing a quad mix of Diana's solo greatest hits - a quick search of her singles discography suggests she had more than a dozen US R&B Top-40 hits between 1970 and 1974, which would be more than enough to fill a greatest hits LP. If it does exist, maybe UMG can dig it up and release it as a stereo fold-down LP for Record Store Day next year. (ha ha :cautious:)
 
DROOL... :p

Thanks Dave, just beautiful..
I'd dearly love to find the 2 x Temptations, 2 x Marvin Gaye's & the Jackson & Supremes studio Quads.. they're on the shopping list.

..and.. but a few years down the line i'm now most fortunate to have found all of these! they're just magic! 🌈😍 wish they could be released on SACD or something (hint, hint, DV 😉
 
Like a true narcissist I'm replying to my own thread because I wanted to add a link to this fascinating Red Bull Music Academy interview with Baker Bigsby, who did a ton of quad mixing including most of Ed Michel's Impulse/Bluesway/ABC quad mixes, and probably others he hasn't been credited with. I know it's been posted before here on QQ but I thought it was worth bringing up again because of this very relevant tidbit:

You did the quad mix on the Stevie Wonder projects and you worked with Stevie a lot: Innervisions, Superstition, Talking Book, Fulfillingness’ First Finale.

Those four I got to mix in quadraphonic, because I was a quadraphonic expert at the time. I also got to work with Stevie Wonder on a Minnie Riperton record and a Syreeta Wright record. He is a fascinating guy. In private he was a mischievous little boy, and in public he was a holy man, so that was quite a contrast.

Robert Margouleff also told me in an email a few years ago that he and Malcolm Cecil had done a quad mix of Talking Book back at the time the stereo mix was done in 1972 (if you see pictures of Margouleff and Cecil with Stevie in the studio back then with their TONTO synthesizer, you can see the rear speakers of a quad monitoring setup behind them) and I think that, taken with Bigsby's quote above, suggests that maybe there's more detail and texture to the Motown quad story than we know about. I mean if they went to the trouble of mixing the T.C.B. soundtrack from 1968 in quad, surely there must've been more low-hanging fruit that they went after before that..
 
I noticed this interesting piece of info from this interview with Robert Margouleff about the recording of Talking Book from The Atlantic, and thought it might be worth posting here ('I Thought He Was a Messenger': Making Stevie Wonder's 'Talking Book'):

"We also did all of our monitoring in quad. We had a beautiful API console in studio B at the Record Plant, which also enabled me to bring some of the instruments into the control room so Steve could sit in the middle and have the clavinet in the back and the Rhodes in the front and the background vocals coming from the back of the room. By spreading all of the instruments out, we were able to really equalize correctly and to get stuff to sound really good. By the time we got to the mixing, there was very little EQing done. We would monitor in quad for the recordings, which was also inspirational to Stevie. Then, we would do what we called in the early days 'Armstrong automation.' Me, Malcolm, and Stevie would be at the console rehearsing our moves and we would mix the thing all in one pass. We had all of our moves marked on the faders and so on and so forth."
 
Like a true narcissist I'm replying to my own thread because I wanted to add a link to this fascinating Red Bull Music Academy interview with Baker Bigsby, who did a ton of quad mixing including most of Ed Michel's Impulse/Bluesway/ABC quad mixes, and probably others he hasn't been credited with. I know it's been posted before here on QQ but I thought it was worth bringing up again because of this very relevant tidbit:



Robert Margouleff also told me in an email a few years ago that he and Malcolm Cecil had done a quad mix of Talking Book back at the time the stereo mix was done in 1972 (if you see pictures of Margouleff and Cecil with Stevie in the studio back then with their TONTO synthesizer, you can see the rear speakers of a quad monitoring setup behind them) and I think that, taken with Bigsby's quote above, suggests that maybe there's more detail and texture to the Motown quad story than we know about. I mean if they went to the trouble of mixing the T.C.B. soundtrack from 1968 in quad, surely there must've been more low-hanging fruit that they went after before that..
Hello, New member here..I just posted about this, before I saw this post from 2 yrs ago. I am attaching a recent? interview with Margouleff where he confirms a quad mix of Superstition. It looks like he's done some type of atmos mix for headphones...https://www.artsmanagementmagazine.com/article/robert-margouleff-talks-about-stevie-wonder/
 
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