There is controversy about which hits are the greatest .
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yes
Full review
Marvin Gaye’s Greatest Hits, including His Personal Rise & Fall ========================================
THE MAN
Marvin Gaye was a brilliant but tormented artist. To understand his music, I think it is important to have some knowledge of the man and his roller-coaster life. Here is a brief description of what influenced his music.
Marvin Gaye was born in 1939, the oldest son of a preacher of a very strict church, which was not part of any of the main Christian denominations. Holy music was the joy of this church, in contrast to severe rules, including no drinking or dancing.
His mother was the breadwinner for the family, working hard doing domestic work for pay, as well as looking after the family.
His father sometimes did paid work part-time to supplement that money. He was violent and would beat his children for minor bad behaviour. Marvin rebelled against his father, and this shows in some of his music.
After leaving school and a brief spell in the Air Force, Martin started his music career. When Motown Records started up, he wanted to be part of it. He married the founders’ sister and started recording for them.
In 1984 Marvin Gaye physically attacked his father for verbally abusing his mother, so his father shot him dead, with a gun that Marvin had given him.
THE MUSIC
When researching into the current price of “The Very Best of Marvin Gaye”, I found that there are at least four albums with this title, with different track listings. This made me re-think how I was going to write this review. I suspect not only will you be expecting to learn about the music, but would also want me to give an opinion on the best of the four different albums with the same title.
As the record companies can’t agree on which are Marvin Gaye’s best tracks, I don’t expect fans of his to either! (But the record companies will no doubt be influenced by who owns the copywrite of the tracks they may want to put on.) Therefore, I think the best way of writing this review is to tell you about the tracks I think are important, and then tell you about the different versions of his greatest hits.
*** Most Notable Tracks ***
* The Duets with Motown ladies. I like these because the voices harmonise beautifully, in feel good, rhythmic love ballards.
His pairing with Tammi Terrell really brought out the best in both of them, and their real life closeness is evident in these songs. Her tragic death at 24 ended a beautiful partnership.
The Motown duets include:
AIN’T NOTHING LIKE THE REAL THING (1968), THE ONION SONG (1968), YOU AIN’T LIVIN’ TILL YOUR’RE LOVING (1968), GOOD LOVIN’ AIN’T EASY TO COME BY (1969), and AIN’T NO MOUTAIN HIGH ENOUGH all with Tammi Terrell,
YOU ARE EVERYTHING (1973) and STOP LOOK LISTEN TO YOUR HEART (1973), both with Diana Ross,
IT TAKES TWO (1966) with Kim Weston.
* Social Consciousness and Religion – The Album “What’s Going On” focuses on these issues. These tracks, when contrasted with later erotic ones, show the battle going on in his mind between sinner and saint. I believe helping raise awareness of social issues was a very important part of his music history, and captures the mood of many young people in the 1970s – me being one of them.
WHAT’S GOING ON – the single (1971). His brother’s return from the Vietnam War inspired this song. He sings, “War is not the answer . . . you know we’ve got to find a way to bring some loving here today.” He urges, “Don’t punish me with brutality,” for picketing against the war. Instead, “Talk to me, so you can see what’s going on.”
MERCY, MERCY ME (1971) is a jazzy ballard about his ecological concerns. “Things aren’t what they used to be. Where did all the blue skies go . . . oil wasted on the oceans . . . radiation underground . . . how much more abuse from man can she stand?” This is a happy sounding tune, until the very end where it cleverly goes into a minor key, signalling to me the end of everything, if we don’t improve our habits.
ABRAHAM, MARTIN AND JOHN (1970) This song shows his religious background and belief in civil rights. People who had the ability to be most influential in bringing about civil rights improvements were being assassinated. He sings, “It seems the good die young.” It is a slow ballard, which has an important place in my personal history. It was when this song was played, that the boy who was to later become my, almost perfect, husband first asked me to dance. I was sweet 16 at the time and am naturally prejudiced about this being one of his greatest songs.
* Autobiographical tracks
I think I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE (1968) will be most well known track. This was released in 1968 when Marvin’s first marriage was in trouble and his anguish comes through in the song. He experienced the pain that went into his soulful work.
Marvin went on to make songs to shock and rebel against his strict sexual upbringing. The lyrics sound very tame compared with some around in more recent music history though.
He met his second love while making the slow and sultry LET’S GET IT ON (1973). He had two children with her, before divorcing his first wife, and marrying again. Another seductive song comes in the form of GOT TO GIVE IT UP, a dance track.
WHEN DID YOU STOP LOVING ME, WHEN DID I STOP LOVING YOU (1978) signalled the end of his second marriage. At this time his dependency on drugs was really messing up his mind and life, and his music career went on hold.
He made one more track SEXUAL HEALING (1982), which was supposed to sort out his childhood confusion between pleasure and pain, I read. When I first heard this song, I thought it was musically great, but found the lyrics irritating because they sounded to me like they were being sung by an arrogant, selfish and/or desperate man. With hindsight, I believe he was all three at this stage in his life. One thing he was good at was showing his emotions through his music.
His dependency on drugs worsened and two years later he met with a tragic death when his father shot him.
His great musical work lives on, and has reached people who weren’t even born when he died. He lives on in his music, which was influenced by soul, pop and reggae. His songs include ones to chill out or dance to, and also ones with a social conscience. Ballards of some artists can seem boring to some, but I don’t know of any ballards by Marvin without a good beat, even though it may be a gentle one. The rest of his music has a strong beat. He sings from the soul and the majority of his music has a “feel good” factor, and lush musical arrangements.
You may think that you will like only one type of these songs. If so “The Greatest Hits” may not be for you. He made many albums and you may prefer to choose another with the help of a site like Amazon, or by contacting me through my guestbook.
THE FOUR VERSION OF HIS GREATEST HITS (Web sites mentioned have full track listings)
Price: Amazon for £9.99 (plus p&p if your total order is under £25 – pap free if over £25) 101cd.com £7.99 plus £1 p&p
Label: Motown Cat No: 5302922 Released 17/7/1996 22 tracks on 1 CD This is the album I own, which was bought for me as a surprise present, because the friend knew I liked Motown Music. (Cover picture first one shown.)
Price: 101cd.com £7.99 plus £1 p&p
At the time of writing this, if you search for Marvin Gaye on CDWOW, two albums with show up, both with the same title, both priced £10.99, but they have different track listings! Once you click to see the track listings the title of one of them changes to “The Best of”, instead of “The Very Best of”. No other information is given about the albums apart from the track listings and the photo on the front cover.
One photo shows Marvin Gaye with a beard and the title “The Best of Marvin Gaye”, if you have good enough sight to read the very small print on the photo. (Cover picture 2nd one shown.)
The other photo shows a younger beardless Marvin Gaye. This is the same photo that is on the front of the 101.cd album from the Motown label – first picture shown. It contains all the tracks from that album with the same photo, but also gives extra tracks on a second CD. THIS IS THE ALBUM I WOULD BUY TO SUIT MY TASTES out of the four mentioned here. I think the second CD with 16 extra tracks, including an except from an interview, is worth the extra £2. CDWOW don’t charge extra for p&p.
It is obviously very important to check the track listing if you intend to buy any of these albums. Anyone with any knowledge of Motown may recognise some of the tracks by only looking at the name of them. On some tracts Marvin sings what others have written, but he wrote and/or produced some of his best songs himself in my opinion.
The music on all these versions is good. It is a matter of personal taste, which you think is the best. Any one would be a good introduction to Marvin Gaye’s music.
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