Any word on Complete Motown Singles 1972?

Can't find anything on any continued collections. Are they done at 1971 11B?

3 1/2 years later, I'm guessing this project did indeed
finish at 1971.

Yes, they can't get the rights to some of the songs for
1972 (the theory is it's Stevie Wonder's stuff, as he owns
all his own masters starting in 1972, but I don't really
know). And they said they would not issue an incomplete
volume. So it appears the series will end with 1972,
unfortunately.

Edited by Brian W.

Really? Only THREE songs? Then I think they are foolish to not issue the final volumes.

Was Stevie's final mono single "What Christmas Means to Me," issued on the Motown 1971B volume? I'm not sure he had any mono singles after that, so omitting them from a Motown 1972 volume would not be much of a loss.

EdisonLite wrote: As far as I know, yes it's just the Stevie Wonder singles that are stopping the 1972 boxed set from happening. I'd suggested they simply take out the word "Complete" from the box title and issue the set with 99% of the songs, but their response was they wouldn't put out the box at all if they couldn't do the "Complete" version.

I find that quite puzzling to hear, since there has already been
"project precedent" to do exactly that - leave off tracks they couldn't
license. As I recall, there were already close to a dozen, pre-1972 Rare
Earth 45 releases that had been left off previous volumes in this series.
The liner notes clearly explained that the reason for their omission was
that these 45s were originally issued in a foreign country, that Motown
simply leased these masters for the U.S. at the time, and that Motown no
longer owned the rights to be able to again include them here. Granted,
none of these omitted Rare Earth 45 releases charted at all, and their
exclusion, while sad for the "completion-ists" among us, had minimal
public impact. Obviously, the same cannot be said for Stevie Wonder,
despite 1972 being a particularly weak chart year for him. But still, all his
1972 tracks are already available on other CDs. Does anyone think it
possible that Harry Weinger simply went ahead, long ago, expecting no
license issues, and had all 5000 "TCMS 1972: Part One" CD copies pressed
up? Which now precludes him from going ahead and removing
"Superwoman/I Love Every Little Thing About You", which was the only 45
Stevie Wonder issued in the first half of 1972? (Both "Keep On Running",
"Superstition" and their flip sides would have appeared on the "1972: Part
Two" set.) To me, there's *no* other rational explanation for all the work
Weinger & Co, had done to have simply been "abandoned", and for this set
to still not ever see the light of day, albeit in a "slightly amended form."
Clearly, these 1972 sets would've sold just as well as the others had (if
not better, given the delays), with or without the 6 Stevie Wonder sides.

Edited by jimct