At number 6 in Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 greatest albums is “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye.
At no. 6 in Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 greatest albums is “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye.
This is the only other album in the top 10 (along with “London Calling” by The Clash) which I did not own prior to seeing this list. So, I bought it about 18 months ago, and since then I have listened to it about two dozen times. The only songs on the album I knew before buying the album were “Mercy Mercy Me” and “What’s Going On”, both songs I like a lot.
I must say I am not sure what to make of this album, I find it very dated. I can appreciate that in the early 1970s it was very groundbreaking, and is possibly one of the first environmentally aware albums. Certainly Marvin Gaye has a message to get across. But I cannot imagine an album sounding like this being made now, it sounds as if it comes from the early 1970s and does not sound timeless. To be controversial, is this album the token album by a black artist in the top ten? Is it in the top ten just so there is a “black/soul album” in the top ten? Or does it deserve to be in the top ten on its own merits? I don’t know, I am just raising these questions as a talking point.
I am a big fan of Motown music in general, and have quite a number of Motown compilation albums. And, to my years, much of Motown’s music sounds timeless, but of all the stuff Marvin Gaye has done with which I am familiar, this album has the most songs which I cannot imagine being recorded at any other time but the early 1970s. What do you think?
Here is a live performance from 1980 of “Mercy Mercy Me” and “What’s Going On”. Enjoy!
Is this album Marvin Gaye’s greatest work? Does it deserve to be in the top ten of the 500 greatest albums of all time?
I am not familiar with this album, but know that it often turns up on various lists.
But there is much music which I can’t imagine having been recorded at any time other than then 1970s, and which is among the best music I know. If anything, 1970s is a mark of quality, not the reverse. 🙂
Phillip,
I wasn’t suggesting that, because it is from the 1970s, that means it is of a lower quality than any other period 😛 But, I do often like music that has a timelessness to it. This is, in fact, one of my major criticisms of Sgt. Pepper, which I will get to when we get to the no. 1 album.
To me, Sgt. Pepper is too associated with the “summer of love” to be timeless. I also find some of the songs on Sgt. Pepper sound dated. Not all of them, but some. Whereas Revolver or Abbey Road sound, to me at least, more timeless.
Ditto with this album. I do like it, and have listened to it a lot in this last week, but I do find it sounds dated. I cannot imagine my kids liking it, whereas they love many of the music on the albums in this top 30 that I have been blogging about over these last 30-odd weeks.
OK, I see what you mean. Whether it applies to this album, I don’t know.
Personally, if I had to choose one Beatles album, it would probably be Revolver (which, by the way, does not refer to a pistol). It and Sergeant Pepper are probably more innovative than their other albums, but one could make the case that Rubber Soul or even Help are just as good. (A more difficult choice would be between the first 4 and the last 4 albums. I might go with the first 4. Of course, if I had to pick 4 in a row, it would be Help through Sergeant Pepper.)
Listen to Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick. Even though at the time Jethro Tull were the most popular band in the world, they are not part of the collective memory of those times the way the Beatles are so, even though it is very much 1972 in terms of sound (compare the sound to Wishbone Ash’s Argus, for example—by the way, an excellent album: good progressive rock without the twiddly bits), it is probably more timeless in the sense you mean (and one of the best rock albums of all time).
I have “Thick as a Brick” on cassette tape 😛 (hey, at least it’s not on 8-track…..) I haven’t listened to it in a long time. I’m not even sure whether I still have a working cassette player.
Tull started in 1968, so the albums are being re-released in super-duper updated versions about 40 years after each original release. Frankly, while good CDs are better than bad CDs, I don’t need any 5.1 mix or whatever. Some of the book(lets) etc with re-releases are nice, but I don’t like buying something I’ve bought (at least) once before. So, while you might want to go for the latest, greatest Thick as a Brick if you don’t have it at all on CD, an alternative is slim box which came out several years ago with the original album, an excerpt of about 15 or 20 minutes from a concert at Madison Square Garden and an interview with some of the band discussing the making of the album. The interview is great (the music as well, of course).
Or there’s Spotify 😉
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I am a massive fan of all forms of black music, soul, funk, reggae, this album sits at the top of my collection just ahead of marley’s exodus, most forms of what we would think of as popular music will sound dated after a period of time, surely it has to be judged on the impact it makes at the time, it’s a bit like comparing a great footballer of the 1960s with one of today’s greats, you can’t every aspect of the game has moved way ahead, to create an album that was fairly unique at the time with its strong social message combined with probably the purest soul voice on the planet surely deserves a place in most top ten lists of greatest albums, the message of the album is still totally relevant today because sadly 40 years on and nothing has changed. Sorry Marvin it’s still going on
[…] 6 – “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye […]
[…] greatest albums of all time. The last post I did was on number 6 in the list, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”, and that post was done in November of last year! So, time to resume with the top 5 in the […]
[…] 500 greatest songs of all time is “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye. I have already blogged about this song here when I blogged about the 500 greatest albums, as this song is the title track of the album which […]