Album of the Day-May 3
Marvin Gaye — What’s Going On
Marvin Gaye — What’s Going On
3.May.2020
Marvin Gaye
What’s Going On
1971
It’s hard to imagine that the personal, career and cultural clusterfuck that surrounded Marvin Gaye in the early ‘70s could generate a masterpiece of this magnitude.
But it did.
Despite being married to Motown Records majordomo sister Anna Gordy, Marvin Gaye wasn’t exactly a blue-chip property of the label. Blessed with a brilliant voice that just didn’t work within the rigid confines that Berry Gordy required of his label signatories.
By the late ‘60s, Gaye’s marriage to Gordy marriage was sputtering as was his career. His singing partner Tammi Terrell got a brain tumor and died and disillusioned with the music industry he seriously explored playing with the NFL. He was having tax trouble and even attempted suicide only to be saved by his father-in-law.
Suffice it to say, Marvin Gaye was not in a good headspace.
What’s Going On was recorded in 1970 and 1971 and culturally America was descending into a special hell that would become the 70s. Now that’s not meant as snark. The 70s were a very dark decade and What’s Going On would serve as an inquisitive harbinger.
The album is a narrative that is told from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran returning home witnessing all the hatred, suffering and injustice. The lyrics also explore drug abuse, poverty and the album was one of the first to explore ecological issues. What’s Going On is considered a concept album, and while I get it, I think that denigrates the importance of the album.
When Marvin Gaye brought Berry Gordy the single of “What’s Going On”, he hated it. Allegedly saying it was: “the worst thing I ever heard in my life.” Luckily, A&R executive Harry Balk went behind Gordy and pressed 100,000 singles of “What’s Going On” and it became Motown’s fastest-selling single at the time.
Berry Gordy relented and let Gaye record and produce the album he wanted. As a result, Gordy got three hit singles:
“What’s Going On” — #1 on the R&B/Soul Chart and #2 on the Hot 100.
“Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” — #1 on the R&B/Soul Chart and #4 on the Hot 100.
“Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” — #1 on the R&B/Soul Chart and #9 on the Hot 100.
This made Marvin Gaye the first male artist to place three top ten singles on the Hot 100 off one album, as well as the first artist to place three singles at number-one on any Billboard chart (in this case, R&B), off one single album.
Make no mistake, Gordy kept his Motown image clear of this new rebellious Marvin Gaye…What’s Going On was released on Motown subsidiary label Tamla.
What’s Going On charted a new course for Marvin Gaye, one which he gladly navigated through the remainder of his career before his untimely death in 1984. The album embraced a mood that transcended both race and class which is one of the reasons it has cast such a long shadow over these 50 years.
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