Not only did Holland, Dozier and Holland write some of the most important music of the Motown era (“Baby Love”, “Where Did Our Love Go”, “Heat Wave”; the list is astonishing), they helped break down boundaries between Black and white pop in ways that feel familiar now but were at the time quietly radical. While the Beatles and Beach Boys deliberately experimented with structure and form, H-D-H called back to the assembly-line professionalism of the Brill Building and Tin Pan Alley—institutions that presented art not as the product of divine inspiration but good old-fashioned work. Implicit in their sound is both a secularising of the gospel they came from and a sense that R&B could be sophisticated without losing its gut. And as much as it helped define its moment, it still sounds vital more than a half-century on. Lamont Dozier once said that great pop should be universal—a tall order, and a generalisation to boot. But if anyone could say it with authority, he could.