Send "Marvin Gaye " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Marvin Gaye submitted a version of the most important single of his career, "What's Going On", to Motown Records in the summer of 1970. Over the previous seven years, the relationship between the singer and his label was contentious yet fruitful; gritty uptempo songs like "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" and "Hitch Hike" were hits, but they undermined Gaye's dream to be a balladeer in the mold of Nat King Cole. Those lusty trifles also roused the internal conflict between the artist's gospel upbringing and his endless desire for carnal pleasure. And while Gaye aspired to be more than just a singer within Motown's assembly-line chug, his boss, brother-in-law, and fellow hard-headed egoist Berry Gordy Jr. wasn't so crazy about the idea. So when Gordy heard that original "What's Going On" mix-- which is included in this box set for the first time-- he rejected the song, reportedly calling it "the worst thing I've ever heard in my life."Instead of releasing "What's Going On" that fall, Motown put out the Gaye compilation Super Hits, which depicts its clean-shaven star as a cartoon superhero flying through the air and fixing a radio tower as a buxom damsel perilously hangs from his shoulder. But Gaye wanted nothing more than to blow up that gleaming image of himself-- now in his early 30s, he would accept nothing but complete control over his art. And if Motown wasn't going to release his first self-produced song, he wasn't going to make music for Motown. Gaye sat idle for months until his label, desperate to put out something-- anything-- from its biggest solo star, finally eeked the single out under Gordy's nose on January 21, 1971. It was an instant success, hitting No. 2 on the pop charts and, perhaps more importantly for Gaye, giving him a win in his constant battle with Gordy, who couldn't deny a smash. Five months later, Marvin Gaye released his full-grown symphony to God, What's Going On, with little resistance. Forty years of ubiquity have made the title track commonplace, so it's easy to forget that the song was the "most avant-garde hit Motown ever had," according to Ben Edmonds' thorough album history What's Going On: Marvin Gaye and the Last Days of the Motown Sound. With this album, Gaye wished to sidestep the sound that made him and others famous during Motown's untouchable 60s run, trading in that trademark big, bright beat for laid-back grooves inspired by Duke Ellington, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, and Santana. And not only was the album a coming-out party for Gaye as a producer and songwriter, he found his signature voice-- soft, floating, airy-- on What's Going On, too. "I felt like I'd finally learned to sing," he told biographer David Ritz. "I'd been studying the microphone for a dozen years, and I suddenly saw what I'd been doing wrong. I'd been singing too loud." The record and its creative revelations led to his stunning 70s auteur period, which birthed three more classics: 1973's Let's Get It On, 1976's I Want You, and 1978's Here, My Dear. Yet What's Going On still stands tallest, making this 40th anniversary, 2CD/LP edition more of a welcome reminder than just another eulogy to baby-boomer culture. Much has been made of What's Going On's political bent, and it's true that the music was partially inspired by Marvin's brother Frankie, who had come back from a three-year tour of Vietnam, along with troublingly violent episodes like the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Kent State shootings that saw four students killed by national guardsmen. Songs like peace-espousing title track and "What's Happening Brother", which finds Gaye expressing a war veteran's helplessness upon returning home, show Marvin's dismay toward his country and government. But this album isn't just a protest time capsule. Far from it. Gaye's disappointment isn't just societal, it's personal as well. During this period, the singer had lost his duet partner and dear friend, Tammi Terrell, and his marriage to Gordy's sister Anna was violently breaking down, and he was being tailed by the IRS for unpaid back taxes. His resulting depression is evident throughout; What's Going On isn't a fiery album filled with timely sloganeering. Part of its long-lasting appeal involves an element of true-to-life resignation. "Who's willing to try to save a world/ That's destined to die," he sings on "Save the Children", pinpointing an American melancholia-- a mix of world-saving power and funereal inevitability-- that endures today....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| After hearing a preliminary mix of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, with its unabashedly passive advocacy for peace and love, Motown head Berry Gordy refused to release the record. Gordy wasn't offended by Gaye's embrace of countercultural politics—Stevie Wonder had already released a few decidedly bleeding-heart singles such as "Heaven Help Us All" and a cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind." No, what really offended his sensibilities (and caused him to infamously dub the LP "the worst record I've ever heard") was its absolute cohesiveness as an album. With What's Going On, Gaye presented to Gordy, who ran Motown as if it lived and died by the hit single, what might be considered the studio's first concept album. (At the very least, it was a groundbreaking experiment in collating a pseudo-classical suite of free-flowing songs.) Of course, when all was said and done, Gordy ended up eating crow with his caviar, as What's Going On spawned three massive hit singles, not to mention rave reviews. It was also the first album after Sly and the Family Stone's Stand! to attempt to illuminate the political mood of the era. And a heartbreaking update on the state of things it was. Stand! was stuffed with both tart missives against racism ("Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey") as well as sweet anticipations of love and happiness ("Everyday People"), and the challenging blend of optimism and awareness of injustice gave the album an invigorating sense of immediacy. But What's Going On, released a few long, hard years after the love movement had peaked and deflated in the face of ongoing indifference and hostility, has an understandably mournful tone. Strangely, the first sounds of the album aren't of uprisings or demonstrations, but rather of a successful social festivity ("This is a groovy party, man!"). Gaye's choice to emphasize humanity at its most charitable rather than paint bleak pictures of destruction and disillusionment is characteristic of the album that follows. Gaye's observer role is bemused rather than indignant, grounded instead of judgmental. And so, befitting a social ethnographer, the titles of the first couplet of songs sound like questions, even if they aren't used as such in the chorus. "What's Going On" sees Gaye suggesting to "father" and "mother" (not so much literal parental figures, but rather symbols of authority and the status quo) that "war is not the answer, 'cause only love can conquer hate." The opening track's good-natured debate with the powers that be segues directly into the camaraderie sob-song of "What's Happening Brother," in which Gaye assumes the role of a Vietnam veteran returning home and asking an old friend where the scene is, as the man's disconnect from American pop culture has left him feeling displaced. (The entire album was reportedly inspired by the return of Gaye's brother from Vietnam.)...full text |
| Superseventies |
| Marvelous Marvin Gaye is the smoothest, and his "What's Going On" smash slipped Gaye back into hit stream, bound to overflow with that persuasive Gaye groove. His latest LP -- he produced it and had a hand in all the songs -- is a cross between Curtis Mayfield and that old Motown spell, and outdoes anything Gaye's ever done on "Inner City Blues," "Right On" and "Flyin' High." Marvin's on top again. - Billboard, 1971. Bonus Reviews! This may be a groundbreaking personal statement, but like any Berry Gordy quickie it's baited skimpily: only three great tunes. "What's Going On," "Inner City Blues," and "Mercy Mercy Me (the Ecology)" are so original they reveal ordinary Motown-political as the benign market manipulation it is. And Gaye keeps getting more subtle vocally and rhythmically. But the rest is pretty murky even when the lyrical ideas are good -- I like the words on "What's Happenin' Brother" and "Flyin' High (in the Friendly Sky)" quite a bit -- and the religious songs that bear Gaye's real message are suitably shapeless. Worst of all, because they're used a lot, are David Van De Pitte's strings, the lowest kind of movie-background dreck. B+ - Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981. "It's tragic that Gaye should only have been re-assessed because of his death. In this time of social and political concern by musicians this stands as one of the greatest social comments -- and collection of songs -- of all time." Robin Denselow strikes the nail on the head. Since he was killed by his father, Marvin Gaye has been appreciated far more fully than he was even in his extraordinary career. This album marks a major re-evaluation by the critical establishment. "Gaye's vision of spiritual hope, despair, joy, melancholia, sexual consolation and the redemptive power of love covers every emotion one asks of music," Mick Brown enthuses. Adam White is also deeply appreciative: "Marvin's Motown-bred style of supreme "cool" melds with social awareness to produce a milestone more meaningful -- and less self-conscious -- than most comparable rock albums. More mature, too, than similar efforts by stable-mate Stevie Wonder." Andy Peebles notes What's Going On as the first major Black concept album, a direct inspiration for many that soon followed. Marvin had gone into a two-year period of semi-seclusion shortly after his historic hit "I Heart It Through The Grapevine." He hated touring, having a terrible fear of live performance, but he wa also horribly upset by the death of his recent partner on love duets, Tammi Terrell. Gaye also claimed to be annoyed by Motown's insistence that he work with othe writers and producers, and took charge of the Originals' "Baby I'm For Real" in 1969 to show that he could supervise a million-seller himself. His intense reading of "Abraham, Martin and John," a British top ten hit in 1970, was the only pointer to the kind of job he could do with material like What's Going On....full text |
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