What’s Going On |
|
Released: May 21, 1971 Peak: 6 US, 19 RB, 56 UK, 37 CN, -- AU, 14 DF Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, 0.3 UK, 2.3 world (includes US and UK) Genre: R&B |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 35:38 |
Rating: 4.680 out of 5.00 (average of 31 ratings)
Quotable:“The most important and passionate record to come out of soul music.” – John Bush, AllMusic.comAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
Motown Success“A masterful stylist of sophisticated soul, Marvin Gaye helped promote the Motown sound throughout the 1960s,” NRR being dubbed “the Prince of Motown.” CM The Rolling Stone Record Guide called him “perhaps the most underrated soul singer of the Sixties.” CS Meanwhile Motown was the decade’s most successful label with about 65% of their releases reaching the Billboard Hot 100, a success rate four times greater than other label. CSGaye came to Motown under the tutetlage of [Motown founder] Berry Gordy, married the boss’s daughter, and worked as a session drummer and percussionist until he got his chance to shine in the spotlight.” JG Among his best performances was “the tumultuous ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine,’ a record whose ramifications deserve their own book.” JG Fighting the Motown Machine“Motown Records – which introduced the concept of the assembly line to pop music – had no interest in giving its artists creative control, much less in venturing into territory that was explicitly political.” BN Gaye decided to record a song (“What’s Going On”) in late 1970 that the Four Tops’ Obie Benson brought him. Gordy refused to release it, “deeming it uncommercial” AM as well as “too philosophical and political.” RVGaye, “the label’s greatest pure vocalist,” TL responded by saying, “Put it out or I’ll never record for you again.” TB Gordy eventually caved. Gordy said, “I don’t think you’re right, but if you really want to do it, do it. And if it doesn’t work, you’ll learn something; and if it does I’ll learn something.” TB Gordy would later acknowledge, “I learned something.” TB After the single met with success, Gaye “recorded the rest of the album over ten days in March.” AM “Finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist,” AM Gaye “produced the album himself with backing from the Funk Brothers, and presented it as a complete nine-song suite.” PM It “was far and away the best full-length to issue from the singles-dominated Motown factory.” AM “The soulster shattered Motown’s pop formula with his powerful social commentary on race, war and the environment.” UT Social CommentaryHis “self-written, self-produced, concept album” NRR was more than just a peak for Motown; “it was a transformative record of almost unparalleled effect.” CM It was “the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music” AM and “one of the defining albums of its time,” TL allowing Gaye to explore “deeply held spiritual beliefs and social commentary on cultural events of the day.” NRR It was “a State of the Union address from a President of Soul” TB and “gave him a road back from the wilderness in which he’d found himself following the death of singing partner Tammi Terrell.” TB“What’s Going On is not a question. Marvin Gaye’s 11th studio album is a survey of all of existence” CQ that chronicled a multitude of societal ills” BN but as a “lament for the way things were rather than an angry protest, making the message both clear and difficult to tune out.” PM Gaye shines “a welcome spotlight on the reality of inner city life for black Americans” CS and “implores for the people of the world to take a look at the hate festering around them and attempt to make peace with each other.” RV It is “told from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran returning home.” CQ “Gaye’s brother Frankie had returned from a three-year hitch in 1967.” AM“Gaye meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past – as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty.” AM “These feelings had been bubbling up between 1967 and 1970, during which he felt increasingly caged by Motown’s behind-the-times hit machine and restrained from expressing himself seriously through his music.” AM The resulting album is “perhaps the truest melding of social commentary and swooning musicality ever achieved – a triumph of substance and soul.” EW’12 Gayes’s “influence has been felt in music ever since. His album made it a civic duty of artists to acknowledge the problems of society, and conscious music has been forever better because of it.” RV Vocal Prowess“Your tour guide on this journey is one of the greatest vocal instruments ever to grace this good Earth..” CQ Gaye said that for What’s Going On, “I finally learned how to sing. I’d been studying the microphone for a dozen years, and suddenly I saw what I’d been doing wrong. I’d been singing too loud…One night I was listening to a record by Lester Young, the horn player, and it came to me. Relax, just relax.” TB“Sometimes the lyrics hardly change, but even as he endlessly utters the same words…it never feels repetitive, the same way a waterfall never feels repetitive.” CQ “Alternately depressed and hopeful, angry and jubilant, Gaye…[delivered] the most sublime, deeply inspired performances of his career.” AM This was his “masterwork, the most perfect expression of an artist’s hope, anger, and concern ever recorded.” AM Musically AmbitiousWhat’s Going On “not only kicked off an era of unprecedented social consciousness in R&B, it also introduced a whole new style of making records.” TL Gaye “was experimenting, trying to discover new ways to sing, emote, project.” JG He “overdubbed his voice multiple times, creating a one-man vocal group,” BN “amid a backdrop of horns, strings and conga drums” RV and layered “rhythm tracks into mellow, hypnotic grooves that made the hard-nosed message…utterly irresistible.” TL It was also “a soul album with jazz time signatures and classical instrumentation.” PMThe resulting sound “was like no other record heard before it: languid, dark and jazzy, a series of relaxed grooves with a heavy bottom, filled by thick basslines along with bongos, conga, and other percussion.” AM “Fortunately, this aesthetic fit in perfectly with the style of long-time Motown sessionmen like bassist James Jamerson and guitarist Joe Messina. When the Funk Brothers were, for once, allowed the opportunity to work in relaxed, open proceedings, they produced the best work of their careers (and indeed, they recognized its importance before any of the Motown executives).” AM They also got actual credits on the album for once, after being identified only as “session players” on previous releases. TB The SongsHere are thoughts on the individual songs from the album.“What’s Gong On” “An improvisatory jam by Eli Fountain on alto sax furnished the album’s opening flourish.” AM
“What’s Happening Brother” “Flyin’ High in the Friendly Sky” “Save the Children” “God Is Love” “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”
“Right On” “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”
|
Resources and Related Links:
Other Related DMDB Pages:
First posted 3/18/2008; last updated 7/23/2024. |
No comments:
Post a Comment