Marvin Gaye’s 1971 11th studio album is well received in the music industry as being in the top 10 soul albums of all time. In terms of Soul music Gaye possesses a profound skill with his three-octave vocal range, and natural ability to sing in the style of both ballads and roughhouse. He is notably one of the most influential voices in music history and retains the status of ‘The prince of soul’. His musical abilities are definitely prodigious, but the style, however, and the repetitive use of the same frame for each song becomes tedious in my opinion. Here I will be discussing how this album was very hard for me to listen to all the way through despite it being a generations worth of revolutionary music.
Upon downloading the album, I decided to first skip through to get the gist of the type of music I was listening to as I had never heard of Marvin Gaye until now. My initial impression of ‘What’s going’ on’ was that the song was slightly monotonous and dreary. Obviously these weren’t completely serious verdicts considering I had not sat down and listened properly yet. I went all the way to track seven until i found a song that sounded different to what I had been listening to. ‘Right on’ was the first song that didn’t feature the continuous violins and gospel-like backing vocals in the background. It didn’t have sketchy brass or unceasing, almost inaudible, unnatural sounding electric guitar. ‘Right on’ had a springy, built up, happy structure. I could hear piano and flute. Then the bass and the wood scrapers. The instruments were played so uniquely different from each other that they could just accompany each other in their little improvised, funky style through the whole song and I would have been happy. I could have listened to the intro alone for those 7 minutes. It wasn’t until I got to around 2 minutes in that the violins came in that I so loathed before. But their harmonising with the woodwind and leading up to the brass was excellent. Instruments were swapping and building up and then dispersing. I thought it was brilliant how such a monotonous song could have so much going on and still work. The middle 8 at five minutes with the saxophone, xylophone and harmonising voice and violins worked excellently despite the contrast of it being so concentrated with instruments earlier. I find Gaye’s use of violins in any musical situation very admirable. The transitions between songs are also seamless and smooth.
Gaye’s lyrics contain an abundance of social protests and the hardships of life in his era: ‘Some of us are born with money to spend’ ‘Those of us who live live, surrounded by good fortune and wealth/enjoy ourselves’. The concept of money and the contrast between the poor and the wealthy are very abundant, with many mentions to Jesus, too. ‘Love, love for God’.This is because Gaye was raised singing in his fathers church, which also explains his vocal talents. The Vietnam war was underway during the 70’s, which caused Gaye to write the first song of the album. ‘What’s going on’. It was an instant hit despite it featuring lyrics about war ‘Brother theres far too many of you dying’ ‘War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate’. While he maintained his Motown style, his hits lead him to open his opportunities for new audiences. Gaye ended up going solo, which would then inspire Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson to do the same.
Gaye had been depressed his whole life. By the time it was 1980, he was suffering with substance abuse and disputes with his father which would eventually lead to his death. Gaye was introduced to the Rock and Roll hall of fame three years after his death. Some of his last statements were: hopefully, I can record to help someone get through a bad time.
biography.com
wikipedia.com
pbs.org
allmusic.com
Image 1 - 1963 The Great March on Washington was a historic moment in the fight for African-American civil rights
Image 2 - 1968 Protests in Washington were the same kinds of inspiration that Gaye was trying to evoke
