Magnificent Albums #04 - What's Going On?////////Marvin Gaye (1971)

themusiclover (54)in #music • 6 years ago

This question is always asked among the Music Lovers around the world:

"What's your favorite concept album?", there's always lots of answers, but somehow the answers always evolve around rock, especially psychedelic and progressive rock. It's always "The Wall", "Nursery Crime", "Tommy/Quadrophenia" etc.

Hello Music Lovers, how are you? Today I want to talk about my favorite concept album: "What's Going On?", released in 1971 by the one and only Marvin Gaye.

The accolades of this album are imense: 6th on the Greatest Album of All Time list from Rolling Stone magazine, it's considered the most important album from Motown history and by many the most important album ever released by a black artist... until today.

Marvin Pentz Gaye was born in 1939, in Washington D.C. He had a difficult childhood, his father abused him physically and psychologically all the time and the only way he had to escape his reality was through music, and boy, he was good at it.

He made a trail of success through the 60's, peaking with the now classic hit "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" with his musical partner Tammi Tarrell, in 1967.

Marvin and Tammi Tarrell

Tammi unfortunately passed away due to a brain cancer in 1970, which left Marvin devastated, so he once again dove into the one think that he knew could heal him: his music. This fact allied to a wish to be more than a hit-maker took him to develop a more mature and deep kind of soul, that culminated in the first track of the album: What's Going On?

What's Going On? was composed by Obie Benson, one of the Four Tops, after witnessing policemen beating hippies for apparently no reason, this united with the zeitgeist of late 60's black america (post-MLK death and in the peak of the Vietnam war) led Marvin to believe that this song was his freedom to be an auteur, finally. He recorded the first mix and sent to Berry Gordy, president of Motown and his brother-in-law, but he hated the song. After some insistence from the Motown crew, who believed that was too good of a song to not be released, the song was released at January 21, 1971.

But to talk about the album, we need to talk about The Funk Brothers. The Funk Brothers were the Motown session band that played on all those hit records of the 60's without receiving the proper credit, but Marvin changed it, he not only credited the band with praise but let the band take creative control on the album, that's why the album has this unique sound to it.

The Funk Brothers

The first 6 tracks of the album create with I kindly call "The Going On Suite", because oh boy... it goes. 19 minutes of the hottest funk band ever recorded on its peak and the golden voice of Marvin. It's conceptual, funky and political at the same time. Amazing.

On the B-side we have Right On/Wholy Holy/Inner City Blues, a cold funky political statement in three songs.

So this is the history of my favorite concept album. :D

Listen and enjoy: