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Marvin Gaye
What’s Going On
(Motown, 1971)

Tortured soul genius carries the world’s ills on his shoulders.

Marvin Gaye dedicated this LP to the man who killed him – his preacher dad Marvin Gay Senior. Profane though such thinking might be, What’s Going On is the kind of album to make you imagine parallels between its narrator and Christ: both driven to spread a message of brotherhood and suffering for the sins of the world, only for their Fathers to have other plans. A year beforehand, Marvin was paralysed by the death of his singing partner Tammi Terrell, but was drawn back to music by a composition by Four Tops’ bass Obie Benson and Al Cleveland. That title track opened the floodgates for a cycle of songs that, far from being the hippy-soul peace-and-love fest it can at first appear, would address the human cost of war (What’s Going On), environmental breakdown (Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)), the protection of innocence (Save The Children) and social injustice (Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)), to a soundtrack of honeyed, loose, rock-solid soul with strings and a uniquely expressive singer pleading for sanity and humanity. A man whose private darkness was deep, he also knew that “only love can conquer hate” was not the whole truth; Flyin’ High (In The Friendly Sky) sees the famously sweet-nosed Marvin self-diagnosing the drug problem that would later consume him, while Inner City Blues contains the threat, “God knows where we’re heading”. Some top notch carnal music would follow, but none would come close to What’s Going On for forceful relevance and game-changing ambition.

Ian Harrison

MORE MOTOWN! Check out this month’s issue of MOJO magazine to discover the 100 Greatest Motown Tracks!