What's Going On

Motown, 2003, Audio CD

Product Description

Amazon.com essential recording

Sly & The Family Stone might have psychedelicized soul music, but Marvin Gaye personalized it. Although the powers-that-were Motown didn't even want to release the record, the unexpected success of What's Going On, issued in 1971, inspired Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, and just about every other black artist on the planet to take greater responsibility for their music and its meaning. Gaye co-wrote the songs and produced the album, flavoring it with layer upon layer of his own multi-tracked vocals, oceans of hand percussion, strings, flutes, and jazzy horn solos. Spacey and loose as a spliff-fueled Sunday afternoon jam in the park, the nine songs all played like a hit single. The title track — inspired by his brother's return from the Vietnam War — and the obvious social commentary of "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" and "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" actually were hit singles. Two other tracks ("Wholly Holy" and "Save the Children") would inspire hit covers by Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross, respectively. Nevertheless, What's Going On sounds as fresh today as it did the week that it came out. Recommended reading: Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz (McGraw-Hill, 1985). — Don Waller

Tracks Information

What's Going On
What's Happening Brother
Flyin' High (In The Friendly Sky)
Save the Children
God Is Love
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
Right On
Wholy Holy
Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
God Is Love (Bonus Track)
Sad Tomorrows a/k/a "Flyin' High (In The Friendly Sky)" (Bonus Track)

Product Details

Title: What's Going On
Sales Rank: 2695 in Music
Artist: Marvin Gaye
Label: Motown, 2003-01-14, Audio CD, 1 Disc
Format: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
Package Dimensions: 5.67 x 4.65 x 0.39 inches, 0.22 pounds

Customer Reviews

Gaye's Moon Shot - Without Peer!: A key chapter in the apocryphal back-story of Motown Records has it that when Berry Gordy the label's founder first heard Marvin Gaye's conceptual masterwork he simply wanted to shelve it as the work of a self-indulgent "artiste" who had lost his commercial bearings - since nothing about the record conformed to Gordy's hugely successful "Motown Sound" formula that routinely cranked out… More reviews

OH MARVIN................: AT 52 YEARS OLD THIS REMAINS MY FAVORITE ALBUM OF ALL TIMES AS MARVIN IS MY FAVORITE SINGER!HIS MESSAGE STILL RINGS TRUE AND REVALENT,TO THESE HORRIFIC TIMES W ARE LIVING IN.................THERE WILL NEVER ANOTHER ARTIST QUITE AS SENSITIVE AND INTUATIVE TO SOCIAL INJUSTICES AS MARVIN.................A TRUE RENAISSANCE MAN! More reviews

Timeless Music: If anyone would like to hear a prophet of the times, they should listen to this CD by Marvin Gaye.
The situation of the world at the time of the recording of this album, has not changed from the world we live in today.… More reviews

An album that has stood the test of time: I agree with the many reviews that rate this a classic album. I know more people who bought this album, than any of the other great soul albums released in the early 70's.
I have several other Marvin Gaye albums, but this is the only one I still play all the tracks.
It's so sad his… More reviews

Marvin Gaye: I'm a big fan but this cd did not have the songs I like best More reviews