Q Magazine's Best Motown Records Of All Time

 

Marvin Gaye What's Going On (180Gv)

Q: Included in Q Magazine's "100 Greatest Albums Ever"

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Entertainment Reviews:

Rolling Stone - p.90

5 stars out of 5 -- "Greatest protest album ever made? Most stirring soul-music symphony? Yes and yes. And then some."

Rolling Stone - 1/23/03, p.68

4 stars out of 5 - "...Revolutionary..."

Rolling Stone - 8/5/71, p.44

"...There are very few performers who could carry a project like this off. I've always admired Marvin Gaye, but I didn't expect that he would be one of them..."

Rolling Stone - 9/30/71, p.42

"...there is no question that he has gotten progressively better...Gaye's multi-tracked lead vocals answer one another like a man talking to himself, finally enveloping the listener in a world view of incalculable intensity..."

Rolling Stone - 1/23/03, p.68

4 stars out of 5 - "...Revolutionary..."

Rolling Stone - 9/30/71, p.42

"...there is no question that he has gotten progressively better...Gaye's multi-tracked lead vocals answer one another like a man talking to himself, finally enveloping the listener in a world view of incalculable intensity..."

Rolling Stone - 8/5/71, p.44

"...There are very few performers who could carry a project like this off. I've always admired Marvin Gaye, but I didn't expect that he would be one of them..."

Rolling Stone - 1/23/03, p.68

4 stars out of 5 - "...Revolutionary..."

Spin - p.80

"[A]n indelible quiet-storm jeremiad."

Spin - p.51

Ranked #9 in Spin's 'The Top 10 Reissues Of 2011' -- "[T]he sound is honeyed, feather-light....For protest music, it sure glides."

Spin - p.122

"The godhead of '70s soul albums plays like one seamless groove-song, with jazzy orchestrations..."

Q - p.120

"[T]his was the first soul album to engage directly with the political and social upheaval of the times, from the Vietnam War to environmental pollution."

Q - 1/03, p.69

Included in Q Magazine's "100 Greatest Albums Ever"

Q - 10/99, p.161

Included in Q Magazine's Best Motown Records Of All Time - "...one of the finest albums ever recorded.... gorgeous soulful settings, bewitching melodies and Gaye's magisterial singing."

Q - 10/99, p.161

Included in Q Magazine's Best Motown Records Of All Time - "...one of the finest albums ever recorded.... gorgeous soulful settings, bewitching melodies and Gaye's magisterial singing."

Q - 6/01, p.128

5 stars out of 5 - "...The live album that forms the centerpiece of this re-packaged version of Gaye's greatest work is... astonishing..."

Uncut - p.95

5 stars out of 5 -- "WHAT'S GOING ON is a fully rounded auteur classic, a sort of soul version of PET SOUNDS..."

Uncut - 5/03, p.116

5 stars out of 5 - "...Global and personal anguish were never so exquisitely conveyed..."

Uncut - 5/03, p.116

5 stars out of 5 - "...Global and personal anguish were never so exquisitely conveyed..."

Vibe - 12/99, p.164

Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century

Vibe - 12/99, p.164

Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century

Living Blues - 5-6/01, p.100

"...A masterwork....Sumptuous packaging, insightful liner notes, and voluminous session information underscore the first-class presentation..."

Living Blues - 5-6/01, p.100

"...A masterwork....Sumptuous packaging, insightful liner notes, and voluminous session information underscore the first-class presentation..."
Billboard (p.52) - "[H]is melodic treatise on war, drugs, poverty, spirituality and ecology still rings disturbingly true 40 years later."

Mojo (Publisher) - 5/01, p.97

"...Stands as both a eulogy and testament to a spirit of co-operation, understanding and harmony. It's a vision of Utopia in words and music one could wander around in forever."

Mojo (Publisher) - 1/02, p.69

Included in Mojo's "Best Reissues of 2001".

Mojo (Publisher) - 5/01, p.97

"...Stands as both a eulogy and testament to a spirit of co-operation, understanding and harmony. It's a vision of Utopia in words and music one could wander around in forever."

NME (Magazine) - 10/2/93, p.29

Ranked #4 in NME's list of the 'Greatest Albums Of All Time.'

NME (Magazine) - 9/11/93, p.18

Ranked #1 in NME's list of The Greatest Albums Of The '70s - "...politicized music has never been done better....it's also infused with a beautiful spirituality..."

NME (Magazine) - 10/2/93, p.29

Ranked #4 in NME's list of the 'Greatest Albums Of All Time.'

NME (Magazine) - 9/11/93, p.18

Ranked #1 in NME's list of 'The Greatest Albums Of The '70s' - "...politicized music has never been done better...it's also infused with a beautiful spirituality..."
Pitchfork (Website) - "It hums and glides on the effortless, multi-tracked Marvins that swoop through the stereo spectrum like ghosts."

Tracks:

• 1.What's Going On - Marvin Gaye, Cleveland, Al
• 2.What's Happening Brother - Marvin Gaye, Gaye, Marvin
• 3.Flyin' High (In the Friendly Sky) - Marvin Gaye, Gaye, Marvin
• 4.Save the Children - Marvin Gaye, Cleveland, Al
• 5.God Is Love - Marvin Gaye, Gaye, Marvin
• 6.Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) - Marvin Gaye, Gaye, Marvin
• 7.Right On - Marvin Gaye, DeRouen, Earl
• 8.Wholy Holy - Marvin Gaye, Cleveland, Al
• 9.Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) - Marvin Gaye, Gaye, Marvin

Product Description:

This deluxe edition of WHAT'S GOING ON includes a 20-page booklet with

complete lyrics, never-before-published photos from personal family collections and an essay by David Ritz.

Personnel includes: Marvin Gaye (vocals, piano); David Van Depitte (arranger, conductor); Robert White, Joe Messina (guitar); Johnny Griffith (celeste, keyboards); Earl Van Dyke (keyboards); Eli Fountain (alto saxophone); Wild Bill Moore (tenor saxophone); Jack Brokensha (vibraphone, percussion); Bob Babbit, James Jamerson (bass); Chet Forest (drums); Eddie Brown, Earl DeRouen (bongos, conga); Jack Ashford (tambourine, percussion).

Recorded at Hitsville, Golden World and United Sound Studios, Detroit, Michican. Originally released on Tamla (310).

WHAT'S GOING ON: DELUXE EDITION features the original album, plus an unreleased Detroit mix, a live version from Kennedy Center, and unreleased single versions and instrumentals.

WHAT'S GOING ON:

Personnel includes: Marvin Gaye (vocals, piano); David Van Depitte (arranger, conductor); Robert White, Joe Messina (guitar); Johnny Griffith (celeste, keyboards); Earl Van Dyke (keyboards); Eli Fountain (alto saxophone); Wild Bill Moore (tenor saxophone); Jack Brokensha (vibraphone, percussion); Bob Babbit, James Jamerson (bass); Chet Forest (drums); Eddie Brown, Earl DeRouen (bongos, conga); Jack Ashford (tambourine, percussion).

Recorded at Hitsville, Golden World and United Sound Studios, Detroit, Michican. Originally released on Tamla (310). Includes liner notes by Smokey Robinson, Ben Edmonds and Harry Weinger.

LIVE AT THE KENNEDY CENTER:

Personnel includes: Marvin Gaye (vocals, piano); Robert White (guitar); Jack Ashford (glockenspiel, percussion, kazoo); Uriel Jones (drums); Eddie "Bongo" Brown (bongos); The Andantes, Freddie Gorman, Walter Gaines, Hank Dixon, C.P. Spencer (background vocals).

Recorded live at The Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. on May 1, 1972.

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

Originally released in 1971, WHAT'S GOING ON remains a landmark album, one that redefined music with powerful, anthemic songs that remain pertinent to this day. Before WHAT'S GOING ON, R&B albums were collections of singles, with secondary "filler" material rounding out the LPs. Marvin Gaye changed all this by releasing a concept album that went beyond the usual boy-meets-girl scenario, weaving together an aural collage of societal ills. "Crime is increasing/Trigger-happy policing," from "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)," is as potent a line today as it was over 20 years ago, and with the country still divided over the Vietnam War, the title track became a rallying cry for peace.

Dark, mercurial, and jazzy, WHAT'S GOING ON was as radical musically as it was conceptually. Layered with lush orchestrations, heavenly background vocals, and loose, fiercely grooving arrangements, WHAT'S GOING ON so surpassed anything previously known as soul music that it virtually reinvented the genre. The critical and commercial success of Gaye's opus also enabled other artists to break free from the creative shackles imposed by Motown and other companies, and to experience more autonomy in musical and thematic expression, thereby changing the industry. In short, the musical and historical significance of WHAT'S GOING ON cannot be overestimated; it was Gaye's masterpiece, and still stands as one of the greatest soul albums of all time.