Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

Released - May 1971

Genre - Soul

Producer - Marvin Gaye

Selected Personnel - Marvin Gaye (Vocals); Wild Bill Moore (Saxophone); Johnny Griffith (Keyboards); Earl Van Dyke (Keyboards); Joe Messina (Guitar); Robert White (Guitar); James Jamerson (Bass); Bob Babbitt (Bass); Chet Forest (Drums); David Van De Pitte (Orchestral Arrangements)

Standout Track - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

I'm unusually apprehensive, or at the least daunted, by including this album on the list. That's for two main reasons - the first one being the inherent difficulty of writing a review of something that you're less familiar with. As long-term readers of this blog will know (I think there are perhaps two of them), I'm basically a fan of rock, art rock and folk, and those general genres tend to shape the vast majority of my listening habits. As I've detailed on a couple of recent reviews, I came to realise this year that I really enjoyed classic funk music, and ended up listening to Isaac Hayes's Shaft soundtrack before long. Researching Hayes' background more, I realised I knew very little about the world of soul music he belonged to and should try to invest some more time in it. Of course, I was ostensibly familiar with soul thanks to the more well-known songs of the likes of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Etta James, Al Green and so on, but they were all artists I was only familiar with in a "Greatest Hits" sense, and I felt it was time I tried to dig a little deeper. As such, it's daunting trying to write a review that belongs to a world of music I'm far less familiar with than the rock music I know the ins and outs of. But I can, at the very least, talk about what I like, even if I don't know its exhaustive history. The second reason for my apprehension is the simple fact that, even after listening to Gaye's What's Going On several times, I wasn't convinced I loved it all that much. It has about three or four undeniably brilliant songs, but a lot of stuff that I felt was essentially treading water between them. Ultimately, I decided I loved its high points too much to ignore it, and it's also of enormous historical significance in the music world, so it's worth saying a few words about it, but as far as I'm concerned it remains a tad more uneven than its reputation would have you believe.

By 1970, Marvin Gaye, who had been a mainstay of the classic soul label Motown since 1961, had started to achieve major success thanks to the huge sales of his 1968 single "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," but his personal life was in immense crisis. Emotionally crippled by financial troubles, drug dependency, the long-term illness of his singing partner Tammi Terrell, and the collapse of his marriage to Anna Gordy, Gaye claimed his success did nothing to please him, and simply made him feel like a puppet for Motown boss Berry Gordy, who simply kept a tight hold on him to continue producing simple love songs. All this frustration drove Gaye to try and radically shake up his music, with the end result being that What's Going On would be the first album he produced himself, hoping to shape it more according to his own musical vision rather than the whims of a producer or record executive. Gaye was also keen to try and do something different from the collections of love songs that had characterised his output and, indeed, most of soul and pop music up to that point, but to make a record that said something of substance. Around the same time, Renaldo Benson of the Four Tops and Motown songwriter Al Cleveland came to him with a new song they'd written based on an act of police brutality Benson had witnessed on tour. Gaye agreed to record the song if he could rewrite it slightly and add some of his own lyrics, and the end result would be "What's Going On," perhaps the most direct and passionate piece of social commentary in soul music at the time, perhaps in music in general. "What's Going On" became the jumping-off point for what would become a conceptual song-cycle, which explored the very loose story of a Vietnam soldier returning home to the USA and despairing totally of the poverty, drug abuse, violence and war he sees around him.

Gaye's production skills and conceptual vision for the album are really impressive - he manages to take nine disparate songs, all of which he has a hand in composing but which all share a number of different co-writers, and manages to organise them into a coherent narrative that works like an orchestral suite, with songs segueing seamlessly into one another, and musical themes and motifs (like the principal themes of both the title track and "Mercy Mercy Me") recurring throughout. The arrangement skills of David Van De Pitte are to be congratulated here, of course, in creating a lush aural soundscape for the various pieces that ties it together into one grandiose whole, but Gaye's careful handle on organising the many components of it demonstrates his ability at being so much more than a simple singer of love songs.

The album's first half, in particular, from "What's Going On" up to "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," has the feel of an orchestral suite, with all the main themes being carried by the strings and the rhythm section made up of Motown's studio band the Funk Brothers kept low in the mix, while it's Gaye's own clear, soulful and passionate vocals that soars over everything and really strikes the listener most. "What's Going On" itself is an instant classic, its lush string sounds and Gaye's double-tracked, call-and-response vocals conveying not a message of despair and anger at the problems in the world as would be so easy to do, but pleaing for a message of love and social responsibility, simply posing questions rather than angrily railing against the establishment. It's a tone that could easily tip over into sentimentality and prechiness, and sadly there are a couple of moments on What's Going On that do that, most notably a moment on the faintly tedious "Save The Children" where Gaye belts out the words "Save the babies!" with not a hint of irony, which it's difficult not to be cynical about. But by and large, the sense of social activism and political commentary that Gaye injects into proceedings is one of gentle bemusement and sorrow rather than self-conscious sweetness, and it's all the stronger for it.

The only other song on the first side that really does something for me is "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," another classic, lilting melody enlivened by the saxophone work of Wild Bill Moore. "What's Happening Brother" is decent but seems too much to be an inferior reworking of "What's Going On" itself, and "Flyin' High In The Friendly Sky" has a mysterious, soaring quality but lacks a tune that really sticks in your head. The two songs that follow are either tedious and sentimental  ("Save The Children") or simply too brief to be memorable ("God Is Love.") The second side of the album, consisting of only three slightly lengthier songs, fares better in terms of consistency - "Right On" is an extended funk jam that gives the Funk Brothers a little more to do and space to flex out, while also boasting some acrobatic and fluttering flute work. "Wholy Holy" is another bit of meandering about between songs, and then things finish with the brilliant "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)," a song that tackles more directly the ideas of urban poverty and struggle that are only briefly hinted at on the title track. Driven by the stark, pulsating bass work of Bob Babbitt, the strings and orchestral lushness are stripped away to the background to keep the focus to a minimal, percussive track with a bluesy menace to it, over which Gaye scats and sings of the urban misery that first prompted Benson and Cleveland to pen the song that kicked everything off. It's easily the most emotive and powerful track on the album, and the only one, along with "What's Going On" that really manages to communicate a powerful emotional response.

What's Going On was enormously significant in that it was the first time somebody in soul music had chosen to talk about something more significant, or wider in scope, than romance. Protest music in general had only recently gained traction thanks to the likes of activist musicians like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, but Marvin Gaye was the first person to turn around and decide that soul music was in a position where it needed to acknowledge the wider problems in the world as well as folk. That he also did it out of a decisive need to take control of his life and career to make himself into more than just a puppeteer's hitmaker makes it all the more powerful and evocative a record - for all its political stances and grand moralising, it is in fact a deeply personal record for the feelings of frustration and despair that Gaye poured into its composition and recording. It still strikes me as an imperfect album - one that achieves some really incredible highs at points but that struggles to maintain momentum between them or to deliver a consistent range of great songs, but for its superlative moments and its vaulting significance, it deserves to be listened to and respected.

Track Listing:

1. What's Going On (Al Cleveland, Marvin Gaye & Renaldo Benson)

2. What's Happening Brother (James Nyx & Marvin Gaye)

3. Flyin' High In The Friendly Sky (Marvin Gaye, Anna Gordy Gaye & Elgie Stover)

4. Save The Children (Al Cleveland, Marvin Gaye & Renaldo Benson)

5. God Is Love (Marvin Gaye, Anna Gordy Gaye, Elgie Stover & James Nyx)

6. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) (Marvin Gaye)

7. Right On (Earl DeRouen & Marvin Gaye)

8. Wholy Holy (Al Cleveland, Marvin Gaye & Renaldo Benson)

9. Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) (Marvin Gaye & James Nyx)