English:Barrett Strong - Money (That's What I Want) - 1960
Barrett Strong - Money (That's What I Want) - 1960
Introduction
Barrett Strong – “Money (That’s What I Want)” – 1960 is an aiMOOC about a compact rhythm-and-blues recording that became the first major national hit connected with Berry Gordy’s young Motown enterprise. You will study the song as music, language, historical evidence, and a case study in the business of popular culture.
A date clarification is important. Barrett Strong’s recording was released on Tamla in August 1959. Its wider distribution, national chart success, and breakthrough impact unfolded in 1960. The date in this course title therefore refers to the year in which the record became a major United States hit rather than its first local release.
You do not need advanced musical training. The course is suitable for upper-secondary school, vocational education, introductory university courses, adult learning, music history, English-language learning, media studies, and cultural studies. You will listen closely, compare interpretations, evaluate evidence, and create your own analytical and artistic work.
The building later known worldwide as Hitsville U.S.A. housed Motown’s early offices and Studio A at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. The modest scale of the site is central to the story: a small independent company created recordings that reached national and international audiences.
Use the recording above for focused listening. Do not copy the full lyrics. Instead, describe what you hear in your own words and refer only to brief phrases when necessary for analysis.
Learning Objectives
After completing this aiMOOC, you should be able to:
- Historical context: Explain why the recording belongs to both 1959 and 1960 and place it in the early history of Tamla and Motown.
- Close listening: Identify the opening riff, recurring accompaniment, vocal delivery, backbeat, texture, and call-and-response features.
- Song interpretation: Develop evidence-based interpretations of the song’s treatment of money, desire, love, and social value.
- Music industry: Explain how labels, distribution, publishing, credits, royalties, and cover versions affect a song’s history.
- Media literacy: Distinguish documented facts from later memories, promotional narratives, and disputed claims.
- English language: Analyze repetition, direct address, contrast, colloquial expression, emphasis, and persuasive effect.
- Creative transfer: Apply the song’s musical or rhetorical principles in an original text, performance, image, podcast, or video.
Historical Background
Barrett Strong and Early Motown
Barrett Strong was one of the earliest artists signed to Berry Gordy’s Tamla label. The Motown Museum records that Gordy signed Strong in April 1959 after hearing his original material. Strong was a singer and pianist, and his career later developed in another direction when he became an important songwriter, especially through his partnership with Norman Whitfield.
The recording commonly known as “Money (That’s What I Want)” emerged during Motown’s formative period. The company was not yet the globally recognized institution it would become. Its staff worked in a converted house, combined artistic and administrative roles, and depended on networks of performers, writers, musicians, local radio, pressing plants, distributors, and record shops.
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The early Motown story is useful because it challenges the idea that famous cultural products always begin inside large, stable institutions. The recording’s rise shows how creative experimentation, local knowledge, entrepreneurial risk, and distribution infrastructure can interact.
Release in 1959, Breakthrough in 1960
The single first appeared on Tamla in August 1959 with “Oh I Apologize” on the other side. Local demand in the Midwest grew quickly. Because Tamla had limited national distribution capacity, the recording was licensed to Anna Records, a label associated with Gwen Gordy, Anna Gordy, and Roquel “Billy” Davis and distributed nationally through Chess Records.
In 1960 the record reached number two on the United States R&B chart and number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. These positions matter because they show both strong success within the R&B market and significant crossover into the broader pop market. The record became Motown’s first major national hit and helped demonstrate that Gordy’s developing enterprise could compete beyond Detroit.
A seven-inch 45 rpm single was a physical object, a commercial product, and a communication medium. Its two sides, label design, pressing quality, price, radio play, jukebox circulation, and placement in shops all influenced how listeners encountered the music.
Detroit as a Musical and Industrial City
Detroit in the late 1950s and early 1960s was strongly associated with automobile production, industrial labor, migration, Black urban culture, and expanding consumer markets. Motown did not simply copy factory production, but scholars often use Detroit’s industrial environment as one lens for understanding the company’s later organization, quality control, specialization, and ambition to produce records with broad appeal.
You should avoid turning context into a simple cause. The city did not automatically produce this song, and the song cannot represent every Detroit experience. Context is most useful when it helps you ask better questions: Who had access to studios? How did local radio shape taste? Which audiences were imagined? How did race influence musical categories, promotion, and crossover success? What forms of work remain audible or invisible in the finished record?
The video above provides a broader overview of Berry Gordy and Motown. Compare its summary narrative with the more detailed evidence in this course. Ask which events are emphasized, compressed, or omitted.
The Recording Session
Studio A and Spontaneous Collaboration
Accounts of the session describe a spontaneous process in Hitsville’s Studio A. Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford were developing the song, Barrett Strong became involved at the piano and microphone, and other musicians joined. Sources identify Benny Benjamin on drums and Brian Holland on tambourine. The guitarist has been identified as Eugene Grew, while the bassist remains uncertain in commonly cited personnel lists.
This uncertainty is educationally valuable. Popular music is often collaborative, but documentation may be incomplete. A finished record can preserve a performance more clearly than it preserves every participant’s name, contractual status, or contribution. Responsible history therefore separates well-supported personnel information from claims that remain uncertain.
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This modern photograph shows a piano in Studio A at the Motown Museum. It is not presented here as proof that the pictured instrument is the exact piano heard on the 1959 recording. It helps you visualize the physical scale and working environment of the studio.
Authorship and the Credit Dispute
Published songwriting credits generally identify Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford. Barrett Strong later said that he had helped write the song. His name appeared in some copyright documentation, was removed, later restored during renewal, and then removed again. Gordy disputed Strong’s authorship claim and described the earlier inclusion as an error.
You should not solve a disputed historical question by simply choosing the version you prefer. Instead, identify the types of evidence involved:
- Copyright registration: A legal and administrative record that can change and may contain errors.
- Published label credit: A commercial attribution that shapes payment and public recognition.
- Oral testimony: A participant’s memory, which can preserve experience but may be contested.
- Contractual evidence: Documents that may define ownership, payment, or employment.
- Musical contribution: Performance, improvisation, arrangement, and composition may overlap without receiving identical legal treatment.
The dispute opens a larger question: Who receives recognition and income when a song is made collaboratively? This question connects music history with intellectual property, labor history, ethics, and business education.
Close Listening Guide
The Opening Riff
The recording begins with a short, blues-inflected piano figure. A riff is a recurring musical idea that gives a song identity and momentum. Here the riff does several jobs at once: it establishes the tonal center, creates rhythmic expectation, announces the song before the full texture arrives, and returns as a structural anchor.
Listen three times with different goals:
- First listening: Notice your immediate physical and emotional response.
- Second listening: Track each return of the piano figure and note what changes around it.
- Third listening: Focus on how voice, drums, tambourine, bass, guitar, and backing vocals enter or interact.
Do not assume that repetition means lack of complexity. Repetition creates a stable frame that allows small changes in vocal intensity, instrumental density, timing, and emphasis to become meaningful.
Rhythm, Backbeat, and Groove
The song uses a strong R&B groove. The drums emphasize a backbeat, while piano, bass, and guitar reinforce the central figure. Tambourine adds brightness and rhythmic definition. The groove creates forward motion without requiring a dense arrangement.
A backbeat commonly stresses the second and fourth beats in a four-beat measure. When you clap along, test whether those beats feel especially strong. Then listen for the relationship between the steady pulse and the more flexible vocal phrasing.
The performance also demonstrates how groove is collective. No single instrument produces the complete effect. Timing, attack, repetition, and space must align across the ensemble. Slight roughness contributes energy and helps distinguish this early Detroit R&B recording from the smoother production style later associated with many Motown hits.
Texture and Instrumental Entry
Texture describes how musical layers combine. The opening is relatively sparse. Additional instruments and backing voices thicken the sound. This gradual accumulation makes the recording feel as though it is being assembled in real time.
Create a listening map with horizontal time and vertical layers. Add rows for lead voice, piano, drums, tambourine, guitar, bass, and backing vocals. Mark entries, exits, and moments of special emphasis. Your map does not need standard notation. Accurate observation matters more than formal symbols.
The grooves of a vinyl record physically encode changes in sound. This image can prompt a media question: how does listening change when music is experienced as a scarce physical single, a radio broadcast, a jukebox selection, a compact disc track, a download, or an unlimited stream?
Vocal Delivery and Call-and-Response
Strong’s lead vocal is direct, urgent, and rhythmically forceful. The delivery does not present the speaker’s desire as a quiet reflection. It turns the central idea into a public demand. Repetition increases insistence, while the backing voices support a call-and-response effect rooted in African American musical traditions.
Call-and-response occurs when one musical statement is answered by another voice, group, or instrument. In this recording, the technique adds communal energy and makes the hook easy to remember. It also creates dramatic tension between an individual demand and a collective response.
Pay attention to vocal timbre. Timbre is the quality that helps you distinguish one voice or instrument from another even at a similar pitch and volume. Use precise adjectives, then support them with audible evidence. “Powerful” is a starting point; “slightly rough, forward, and increasingly urgent” is more analytical.
Form and Economy
The recording is brief, but it creates a complete dramatic arc. It relies on recurring sections, a memorable refrain, instrumental continuity, and intensifying delivery. The form is economical: little material is wasted, and the central idea remains unmistakable.
When analyzing form, label sections by function rather than forcing them into a model. You may identify an opening riff, verse-like statements, recurring refrain material, instrumental continuation, and an ending. Compare your map with another learner’s map and discuss why your boundaries differ.
Language and Meaning
A Direct Statement of Desire
The title contains ordinary vocabulary and a clear relative clause: “that’s what I want.” Its force comes from directness, repetition, rhythm, and contrast. The speaker defines one desired object and rejects the idea that emotional value alone is sufficient.
For English-language study, notice the following features:
- Contraction: “That’s” compresses “that is” and supports the rhythm of speech.
- Demonstrative pronoun: “That” points back to the desired object.
- Relative construction: “What I want” functions as a noun phrase naming the desired outcome.
- Repetition: Repeated words become rhythmic, memorable, and persuasive.
- Directness: The first-person verb “want” avoids uncertainty and politeness markers.
Practice speaking the title with different stress patterns. Stress “money,” then stress “that,” then stress “want.” Explain how each version changes the implied contrast.
Money, Love, and Value
The song can be heard as comic exaggeration, social realism, individual ambition, materialism, frustration, or a challenge to sentimental clichés. These interpretations are not equally convincing unless they are supported by musical and verbal evidence.
One useful context is the older popular standard “The Best Things in Life Are Free.” “Money” can be understood as a response that rejects or complicates that ideal. The speaker does not deny that affection has value; the argument is that affection does not satisfy every practical need. This tension gives the song more interpretive depth than a simple celebration of wealth.
Ask yourself:
- Is the speaker sincere, ironic, playful, desperate, or some combination?
- Does the energetic performance make the demand seem joyful or aggressive?
- Does repetition strengthen the argument or reveal its limitation?
- How might listeners with different economic experiences hear the same words?
- What is the difference between needing money, wanting money, and valuing only money?
Rhetoric and Persuasion
The song’s rhetoric depends on simplicity. It uses a memorable claim, a repeated hook, strong rhythm, contrast, and emotional delivery. In advertising and political communication, similar techniques can make a message memorable even when the argument is incomplete.
Analyze the song as persuasion by identifying:
- The claim made by the speaker.
- The value or assumption being challenged.
- The emotional tone.
- The role of repetition.
- The evidence that is stated, implied, or missing.
- The audience the speaker appears to address.
Then transfer the method to a modern advertisement. Does the advertisement repeat a desire, define a problem, and present one object as the solution?
Music, Business, and Technology
Independent Labels and Distribution
A recording can be artistically successful yet fail commercially if it cannot be pressed, shipped, promoted, broadcast, and stocked. Tamla’s decision to license the record to Anna Records illustrates the importance of distribution. Local popularity created demand, but a wider network was needed to turn demand into national chart success.
Map the chain from studio to listener:
- Song development
- Rehearsal and recording
- Mastering and manufacturing
- Label release
- Distribution
- Radio and jukebox exposure
- Retail purchase
- Chart reporting
- Further licensing and cover versions
At each stage, identify the people, technologies, costs, and decisions involved. This exercise turns a familiar song into a model of a creative industry supply chain.
Singles, B-Sides, and Scarcity
The 45 rpm single limited how much music could be issued in one small package. The main promoted side was paired with a B-side. Listeners could not instantly access every version ever recorded. Scarcity made radio play, record ownership, and physical circulation especially important.
Compare this with streaming. Today a listener can move immediately among Strong’s recording, later covers, remasters, live performances, and commentary. Access has expanded, but platforms now shape attention through search ranking, playlists, recommendation systems, licensing rules, and regional availability.
A useful media-literacy question is not merely “Is the song available?” but “Who controls how the song is found, credited, monetized, and contextualized?”
Publishing, Royalties, and Ownership
A song and a sound recording are related but distinct assets. The composition includes the underlying music and words. The sound recording captures a particular performance. Different rights, contracts, and royalty streams may apply.
A performer may receive payment without owning the composition. A songwriter may earn publishing income when many artists record the same song. A label may control a master recording. A distributor or platform may receive revenue for delivering access. The history of “Money” demonstrates why accurate credits and transparent agreements matter.
Create a simple rights diagram with four boxes: songwriter, performer, publisher, and record label. Add arrows showing possible payments or permissions. Then discuss where conflict may occur.
Cover Versions and Cultural Legacy
A Song That Travels
A cover version is a new recording of an existing composition. “Money” has been recorded by many artists. Two especially useful comparisons are the Beatles’ energetic rock version from the early 1960s and the Flying Lizards’ sparse, ironic new-wave version from 1979.
A cover does more than reproduce notes and words. It can change instrumentation, tempo, vocal style, production, genre, audience, and meaning. The same composition may sound urgent, celebratory, aggressive, detached, comic, or critical depending on performance choices.
Listen to the Beatles’ live version and compare its vocal attack, ensemble density, tempo, and rock performance style with Strong’s recording. Do not ask only which version you like. Ask what each version makes audible.
The Flying Lizards’ version uses a deliberately different sound world. Its detached delivery and unusual timbres can make the central demand feel ironic or alienated. The comparison shows how arrangement can reinterpret language without changing the basic song.
Comparative Listening Table
| Feature | Barrett Strong | The Beatles | The Flying Lizards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Historical setting | Early Detroit R&B and Motown formation | British rock engagement with American R&B | Late-1970s new wave and experimental pop |
| Vocal impression | Direct, urgent, rhythmically forceful | Aggressive, energetic, performance-driven | Cool, detached, ironic |
| Instrumental identity | Bluesy piano riff, rhythm section, tambourine, backing voices | Rock-band weight with prominent guitars and forceful drums | Sparse, unconventional textures and mechanical restraint |
| Possible interpretation | Practical desire and emphatic demand | Excited assertion and rock intensity | Critique, parody, or estranged consumer desire |
| Analytical question | How does groove create urgency? | How does amplification change the song? | How does emotional distance alter meaning? |
Treat the table as a hypothesis, not a final answer. Revise any cell after close listening and justify your change.
Motown’s First Major Hit
The record’s importance extends beyond its chart position. It demonstrated that the young Motown enterprise could create a nationally successful product. Later Motown recordings would develop more standardized production practices and a widely recognized house style, but “Money” preserves the rough energy of the company’s earliest period.
The documentary trailer above places early Motown within a longer story of cultural influence. Use it as a starting point, then verify specific claims through museum, chart, archival, and scholarly sources.
Media Literacy and Historical Method
Fact, Interpretation, and Dispute
Use three labels in your notes:
- Documented fact: Supported by reliable records, such as the August 1959 release and 1960 chart performance.
- Interpretation: A reasoned explanation, such as hearing the performance as ironic or economically realistic.
- Disputed claim: A statement on which important sources or participants disagree, such as Barrett Strong’s claimed songwriting contribution.
This distinction prevents two common errors. The first is presenting interpretation as fact. The second is treating uncertainty as permission to invent an answer.
Evaluating Sources
When researching the song, evaluate each source by asking:
- Who created it?
- When was it created or updated?
- What evidence does it provide?
- Is it independent, promotional, journalistic, scholarly, legal, or user-generated?
- Does it distinguish original documents from later memory?
- Can the claim be checked against another reliable source?
- Does the source have a financial or reputational interest in the story?
Wikipedia is useful for orientation and references, but important claims should be checked against museum records, chart data, books, archives, interviews, or legal documentation.
Key Vocabulary
| Term | Meaning in this course |
|---|---|
| Riff | A short recurring musical idea that gives identity and momentum. |
| Backbeat | Strong emphasis commonly placed on beats two and four. |
| Groove | The coordinated rhythmic feel created by timing, repetition, and interaction. |
| Timbre | The sound quality that distinguishes voices and instruments. |
| Texture | The way musical layers combine. |
| Call-and-response | A pattern in which one musical statement is answered by another. |
| Single | A short commercial release usually built around one promoted recording. |
| B-side | The recording placed on the reverse side of a physical single. |
| Distribution | The system that moves recordings from a label toward markets and listeners. |
| Publishing | The business and rights structure connected with a musical composition. |
| Royalty | A payment connected with authorized use, sale, performance, or reproduction. |
| Cover version | A new recording of an existing composition. |
| Crossover | Success that reaches beyond an initially targeted market or chart category. |
| Primary source | Evidence produced during the period or by a direct participant. |
| Interpretation | A reasoned explanation supported by evidence. |
Interactive Tasks
Quiz: Test Your Knowledge
When was Barrett Strong’s recording first released on Tamla? (August 1959) (!January 1960) (!November 1963) (!July 1979)
Why is 1960 central to the song’s history? (It achieved its major national chart breakthrough) (!It was first composed by the Beatles) (!It became a digital streaming release) (!It was recorded at Abbey Road)
Who are the generally published songwriters? (Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford) (!Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield) (!John Lennon and Paul McCartney) (!Benny Benjamin and Brian Holland)
Which label first released the single? (Tamla) (!Capitol) (!Virgin) (!Parlophone)
What was Anna Records’ main importance to the release? (It helped provide wider national distribution) (!It wrote a new set of lyrics) (!It moved Studio A to London) (!It replaced Barrett Strong as singer)
What chart peak did the song reach on the United States R&B chart? (Number two) (!Number one) (!Number twenty-three) (!Number fifty)
Which musical feature gives the opening its immediate identity? (A recurring bluesy piano riff) (!A long orchestral introduction) (!A solo acoustic flute) (!A silent spoken monologue)
What does call-and-response describe? (One musical statement answered by another) (!A legal transfer of copyright) (!A method of pressing vinyl) (!A chart ranking system)
Why is the authorship history treated as disputed? (Strong claimed a contribution that Gordy rejected) (!The recording has no known singer) (!The record was never commercially issued) (!All copyright records were destroyed)
What can a cover version change most directly? (The arrangement and interpretation) (!The date of the original recording) (!The location of Hitsville U.S.A.) (!The identity of the original singer)
Memory Game
| Tamla | Label that first issued the Barrett Strong single |
| Riff | Short recurring musical idea |
| Backbeat | Emphasis commonly heard on beats two and four |
| Anna Records | Company that supported wider national distribution |
| Royalty | Payment connected with authorized musical use |
| Crossover | Success beyond an initially targeted market |
| Timbre | Distinctive quality of a voice or instrument |
| B-side | Recording placed on the reverse of a physical single |
Drag and Drop
| Match the correct terms. | Topic |
|---|---|
| Studio A | Early Motown recording room in Detroit |
| Janie Bradford | Generally credited co-writer with Berry Gordy |
| Barrett Strong | Lead vocalist on the original hit recording |
| Cover version | New recording of an existing composition |
| Distribution | Network that moves a release toward listeners and markets |
Match each term with its correct explanation, then explain which match is most important for understanding how a local recording became a national hit.
Crossword Puzzle
| Strong | Who sang the original hit recording? |
| Gordy | Which surname belongs to the founder associated with Tamla and Motown? |
| Bradford | Which co-writer had the first name Janie? |
| Tamla | Which label first issued the single? |
| Detroit | In which city was the recording made? |
| Tambourine | Which percussion instrument was played by Brian Holland? |
LearningApps
Cloze Text
Open-Ended Tasks
Easy
- Listening diary: Listen to the original recording twice and write five precise observations about voice, rhythm, instruments, dynamics, or repetition.
- Visual single cover: Design an original, non-infringing cover image that communicates urgency and desire without copying an existing label or photograph.
- Vocabulary recording: Create a one-minute audio explanation of riff, backbeat, groove, and timbre using your own examples.
- Date clarification poster: Produce a small infographic that explains the difference between the August 1959 release and the 1960 national breakthrough.
Standard
- Comparative review: Compare the Barrett Strong recording with either the Beatles or Flying Lizards version in 600 to 900 words, using at least five musical criteria.
- Studio interview: Interview a musician, producer, DJ, record collector, or music teacher about how arrangement changes the meaning of a song, then summarize the main findings.
- Distribution map: Create a visual flowchart showing how a 1959 recording could move from Studio A to pressing, radio, shops, jukeboxes, charts, and national audiences.
- Rhetorical advertisement: Analyze a current advertisement that uses repetition and desire, then create a parody that reveals the persuasive technique.
Advanced
- Authorship dossier: Build an evidence file on the songwriting-credit dispute, classify each source, and write a balanced conclusion that clearly marks unresolved questions.
- Rights simulation: Design a hypothetical agreement among songwriter, performer, publisher, label, and distributor, then justify how income and credit should be shared.
- Original response song: Compose and record a short response song that challenges a familiar slogan, using a recurring riff or verbal hook without borrowing copyrighted melody or lyrics.
- Public history video: Produce a three- to five-minute documentary video connecting the song to early Motown, Detroit, distribution, and cover culture, with a source list and original narration.
Learning Assessment
- Evidence-based listening analysis: Explain how at least three musical features create urgency, and support every claim with a specific audible observation.
- Historical reasoning: Write a chronological account that distinguishes the 1959 local release from the 1960 national breakthrough and explains why the distinction matters.
- Source evaluation: Compare a museum page, a chart source, a general encyclopedia, and a participant interview, then rank their usefulness for four different research questions.
- Interpretive argument: Defend one interpretation of the song’s treatment of money and answer a plausible counterargument.
- Business transfer: Apply the distribution lesson to a modern independent creator releasing music through digital platforms.
- Cover-version analysis: Show how one later arrangement changes the emotional or social meaning of the composition.
- Ethical judgment: Propose fair principles for crediting collaborative creative work when composition, improvisation, performance, and arrangement overlap.
Evidence of Learning
Strong evidence of learning includes the following:
| Area | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Knowledge | Accurate explanation of the release date, 1960 chart breakthrough, early Motown setting, credited writers, distribution history, and major musical features |
| Listening skill | Specific observations about riff, groove, texture, timbre, form, instrumental entry, and call-and-response |
| Historical method | Clear separation of documented fact, interpretation, and disputed claim |
| Language skill | Analysis of contraction, repetition, stress, directness, contrast, and persuasive effect |
| Media literacy | Evaluation of source purpose, evidence, reliability, date, and possible interest |
| Creative product | An original poster, map, recording, essay, podcast, interview, rights model, or video that applies course concepts |
| Transfer | Ability to connect the case with modern distribution, platform power, authorship, advertising, labor, or intellectual property |
| Reflection | A reasoned explanation of how your interpretation changed through listening, comparison, or research |
OERs on the Topic
Sources and Further Study
- Motown Museum: Barrett Strong provides an institutional account of Strong’s signing, the song’s creation, national distribution, chart success, and later songwriting career.
- Billboard: Barrett Strong chart history provides chart information for the recording.
- Wikipedia: Money (That’s What I Want) provides an overview, personnel list, release history, authorship dispute, and references for further checking.
- Associated Press: Barrett Strong obituary summarizes Strong’s role in Motown history and later songwriting work.
- Wikimedia Commons: Motown Museum media provides freely licensed images of Hitsville U.S.A. and Studio A.
- Barrett Strong: Money lyric video supports close listening to the original recording.
- Hitsville: The Making of Motown official trailer introduces the broader Motown story.
- The Flying Lizards: Money official video supports comparative interpretation of a later cover.
Check access dates, regional availability, licensing information, and publication context when you use online sources. A working media link does not automatically make every statement around it reliable.
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