You see, war is not the answer for only love can conquer hate

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...

...another album I listened to in order to see what all the fuss was about - I seem to recall I liked it but was left with a feeling that I wasn't entirely getting it and have never revisited it.

#1 : What's Going On - Marvin Gaye (1971)

Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece began as a reaction to police brutality. In May 1969, Renaldo “Obie” Benson, the Four Tops’ bass singer, watched TV coverage of hundreds of club-wielding cops breaking up the People’s Park, a protest hub in Berkeley. Aghast at the violence, Benson began to write a song with Motown lyricist Al Cleveland, trying to capture the confusion and pain of the times. He knew he had something big in his nascent version of “What’s Going On,” but the rest of the Four Tops weren’t interested, and Benson’s efforts to get Joan Baez to record it didn’t work out, either.

But one of Motown’s biggest stars and greatest voices turned out to be more receptive. Gaye was in a dark and contemplative place, wounded by the death of his frequent duet partner Tammi Terrell, yearning to sing subtler and more substantive material, and mulling over his brother Frankie’s horrifying tales of his recent stint fighting in Vietnam. Gaye had been keeping busy writing for and producing a group called the Originals, and trying to figure out what was next. “I’d been stumbling around for an idea,” he told biographer David Ritz. “I knew there was more inside me. And that was something no record executive or producer could see. But I saw it. I knew I had to get out there.”

After some hesitation, Gaye embraced “What’s Going On,” and with the help of arranger David Van De Pitte, crafted a version of the song that was jazzier and more sophisticated than any Motown recording to date, layering cinematic strings over James Jamerson’s supernaturally sinuous bass line and a polyrhythmic groove. Gaye unleashed one of his most spectacular vocal performances in a career full of them, scatting and improvising around the main melody.

Motown Records founder Berry Gordy initially resisted releasing “What’s Going On,” telling Gaye that he thought scatting was out of date and protest lyrics were too commercially risky. But when the song became an instant hit, Gordy gave Gaye a single month to craft an album to accompany “What’s Going On.” Gaye more than rose to the challenge. “I work best under pressure and when I’m depressed,” he told the Detroit Free Press at the time. “The world’s never been as depressing as it is right now. We’re killing the planet, killing our young men in the streets, and going to war around the world. Human rights … that’s the theme.”

So, after a somewhat lengthy introduction by Rolling Stone, let's revisit it and see what I've forgotten.

1. "What's Going On"
A very smooth starter which I knew and liked - it's an absolutely classic track and no mistake.

2. "What's Happening Brother"
And a smooth transition into a song that some might comment doesn't sound massively different to its predecessor and has a very similar message.

3. "Flyin' High (In A Friendly Sky)"
Yeah - more smoothness.

4. "Save The Children"

Let's say this one is silky, shall we?  

5. "God Is Love"

A slight move up tempo but it's not straying too far from the path.

6. "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)"

A fine track and it feels like worrying about the environment wasn't something people spent a lot of time doing back then so I guess this was way ahead of it's time.  It's also got some fine harmonies in the backing vocal.

7. "Right On"

All sorts of instruments joining the jam here - strings, flute, sax, the works!  It's done well enough, but at 7:31 did somewhat test my patience.  His voice really is magnificent on this album though.

8. "Wholly Holy"

A bit of a gospel jam - if such a thing exists.  Nice enough.  A neat title though.

9. "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)"

Smoooooth...

Well, that album didn't hang around, I can tell you - it's only 35 minutes long but it felt more like 20.  I assume that means I enjoyed it (or I fell asleep, I guess!).  One thing that I noticed is that a lot of the tracks flowed into the next and, whilst I noted that Amazon pretty much ruined the Abbey Road medley by adding gaps between each track, strangely this didn't happen here which certainly enhanced the flow.  And a very enjoyable flow it was too - I can't claim to be an expert in the genre but I certainly found it a lot more pleasurable than most of the similar efforts on this list - it reminded me of Curtis Mayfield (who we've seen a couple of times on the list), but slightly smoother.  I'm not a huge fan of the term "concept album" but this one does seem to be fit the bill with a lot of the songs running with the concept of "why are we doing this?" - and it's to their credit that they generally don't claim to offer answers, but instead say things have to change whilst trying to offer some hope that they can.  It's somewhat unfortunate that where things have changed over the years, they've often just got worse - but it feels harsh to attempt to pin the blame for that on Marvin.  I also imagine it would have been a very interesting/challenging record at the time of release with it bringing a real "end to the Sixties" vibe for a lot of people - whilst I was alive at the time, I'm not sure my personal recollections would be particularly relevant (since I was 3).  The title track is the highlight for me, but there's a pretty decent quality bar across the album and he really has a fantastic voice - and did I mention it was smoooooth?  He also looks like a righteous dude on the album cover.

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say about the album really - it all came about because of the single as described in the description above.  Berry Gordy was VERY not keen to release it saying people wouldn't like the jazz or the political vibes it was giving off, but one of his staff basically just ignored him and pressed 100,000 copies and sent them out to the shops - and luckily people bought them, which resulted in Gordy telling Marvin to get a move on and make an album in the same vein.  So he did, and it was well received both critically and commercially (although mostly only in the US - it didn't chart in the UK until his death in 1984).

His Wikipedia entry suggests he didn't exactly have the happiest life and it certainly didn't end well, shot dead by his father on the day before his 45th birthday.  So let's concentrate on happier things - like his version of the Star Spangled Banner which I had to check out because Wikipedia mentions it so many times.  And it's really pretty cool.  They also mention his appearance at Motown 25 a lot (which was the show where Michael Jackson showed off his moonwalk) and yeah, that's pretty cool as well.  Pretty much everyone agrees he had a massive musical and cultural impact, so obviously I have to leave you with a particularly random fact - he was born Marvin Gay, but he added an "e", apparently "to silence rumors of his sexuality".  I'd have to say I've no idea whether there were any such "rumors", but if there were, then I'm not entirely sure this would totally thrown people off the scent - "It's spelt with an "e", you say?  Well, he couldn't possibly be gay then!".  Apparently Sam Cook did the same thing to "signify a new start to his life" - or maybe to silence rumors of his culinary abilities?

"Customers also listened to" all those names, some of whom have come out of this exercise well - particularly Sam, Aretha and Curtis for me.  But Marvin's voice was up there with the best of them and I really enjoyed this album - I'm not entirely sure why I'd never revisited it.  Probably because I don't know my own mind half of the time, as I think I've amply demonstrated over the past 6 months (and the other half of the time I'm just plain wrong).  I wouldn't say this or any other album can really be described as the one greatest album ever, but I'm certainly happier with its position than I would have been with many others occupying that slot - interestingly, the 2003 and 2012 versions of this list both had Sgt Pepper at #1 (and Pet Sounds at #2) which I think I would also have been happy enough with and am somewhat surprised it's dropped down quite so far in this version to #24.  Times and tastes change I guess - and if you haven't picked that up from this exercise then you REALLY haven't been paying attention.  But well done to Marvin for taking the top slot with an album that was very much of its time but is also still very relevant (somewhat depressingly so).

And with that, we're done.  Except for a couple of obligatory pointless post-mortem exercises - one (mostly) objective and one very much subjective.  I bet you can't wait!

#2 - Our penultimate visit
100-1 - The final write-up