Marvin Gaye What's Going On

-->

Prior to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, I Heard it Through the Grapevine was your typical Motown sound that defined the label and according to the veteran musicians of the time was your run-of-the-mill pump out. The deviation from this formula came at much criticism from Benny Gordy, the founder of Motown. He refused to release the record and Marvin Gaye gave him an ultimatum to not play a single show until the album was released. [3]

Social reform issues, voice against war, ecological concerns, saving children of the world. Blues roots all throughout. Caring seems to be the central theme of the album. Vocals not directly speaking to audience, more like listing facts or passing by casual conversation, all linked into vocals. Makes the listener more attentive to groove and vocals being sung due to their indirectness. Some tracks showing beginnings of electronic music’s non-traditional percussive elements, especially dealing with vocal one shots, harmonies. Christian overtones dealing with love for one another. The instruments at times are vague and seem to be doing their own thing. Harmonization seems to be focused mainly in timbre and not so much in the chord progressions in some songs.

           

I can almost see influences of Marvin Gaye’s in Michael Jackson and 90’s pop Jazz. The laid-back not-in-your-face nature of the vocals gives a sense of a calmer type of Jazz, if a thing like that existed. As a music producer, I see the mixing of some of the higher register instruments took precedence. I cannot draw, from lack of expertise in the subject, whether this was done intentionally and for what purpose, however the shakers and bells seem to stand out more than other instruments in the mix. From a listener’s standpoint, I can appreciate the inspiration for the pop explosion of the 90’s and beginnings of electronic music elements, however this album bored me to tears. Which makes it difficult to listen to without an air of bias. Mercy, Mercy Me has elements of a trippy trance song in its outtro and that’s really the only thing that set this apart from the music that’s out there right now in the same genre.

- Chuma