Happy 50th Anniversary to Marvin Gaye’s thirteenth studio album Let’s Get It On, originally released August 28, 1973.
In 1971, Marvin Gaye changed the course of Motown’s history and output and set impeccably high standards for future musical endeavors, irrespective of genre or style. What’s Going On was a phenomenon—an immediate critical and commercial success that changed the way albums were thought of. Since its release, it has featured innumerable times in “Best of” lists and in 2020, Rolling Stone named it the greatest album of all time. It’s an artistic benchmark in popular music that resonates as clearly today as it did 52 years ago upon its release.
But what does an artist do after success that wild and immediate?
For Marvin Gaye, it was always going to be tough to deal with. He’d already sunk deep into depression in the aftermath of Tammi Terrell’s collapse on stage (and eventual passing) and this was compounded by the disintegration of his marriage to Anna Gordy. Success hung heavy around the neck of a musical genius. But with the success came extra freedoms granted to him by Motown founder Berry Gordy and a new improved contract. Gaye took the opportunity to write a film score (as Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield had done so successfully) in the shape of Trouble Man (1972).
But doubts were never far from the surface. An album was shelved (only to surface in 2019 as You’re the Man) and angst riddled writer’s block stood between Gaye and further excellence and success. But August 1973 saw the unveiling of the next masterpiece that would once again elevate Gaye to new heights. Where What’s Going On was a sanctified, state-of-the-world proclamation, this new iteration was a smorgasbord of sexual desires that helped Gaye launch new dimensions of soul music.
From its opening notes, Let’s Get It On ploughs a sticky, sexual furrow that drips with ribald, brazen eroticism that was barely, if ever, heard so explicitly. For a man who had explicitly rejected past attempts to exploit his sexual allure as a way to expand his audience, it was bound to come intertwined with the spirituality that had infused his masterpiece from 1971.
Gaye’s biographer, David Ritz, explained Gaye’s approach: “If the most profound soul songs are prayers in secular dress, Marvin's prayer is to reconcile the ecstasy of his early religious epiphany with a sexual epiphany,” Ritz wrote in Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye (1985). “The hope for such a reconciliation, the search for sexual healing, is what drives his art ... The paradox is this: The sexiest of Marvin Gaye's work is also his most spiritual. That's the paradox of Marvin himself. In his struggle to wed body and soul, in his exploration of sexual passion, he expresses the most human of hungers—the hunger for God.”
Listen to the Album:
Another advance in Gaye’s artistry came in the further development of his backing vocals. Here on Let’s Get It On, he layers his vocals to even greater effect. Steeply banked but delicately placed, they add unfeasible amounts of drama to the already dynamic music. And his lead vocals are impeccable—riven with brittle fragility, unbridled lust and palpable yearning. On “If I Should Die Tonight,” his yelps could be exaltation for the almighty or incredible sexual ecstasy—nowhere in musical history has that line become as blurred or, indeed, become as one in such a singular way. Once Gaye opened the door to the bedroom, countless other soul artists followed. The rise of “quiet storm” music (as exemplified by Smokey Robinson and others) is a direct result of Marvin Gaye’s boudoir inspired lover-man persona.
When I first heard the album, nothing mattered to me except the glory of the funk and the sweat-inducing sexual charisma that poured from the speakers. But as time passed, I wondered who could possibly have inspired a sensual masterpiece like this, so I found out. Janis Hunter was the daughter of a friend of Ed Townsend (co-writer of the album) with whom Gaye became infatuated. She was 17 years old, while Gaye was almost double that. Somehow (probably because I am a man) however sordid and inappropriate that relationship was, I was able to see past it and still enjoy the record in the same way.
But when I learnt more about the relationship and, specifically, the demands placed upon Hunter by the older, more experienced and dominant partner, the more my love for the album was blemished. In 2015, Hunter published her memoir After the Dance: My Life with Marvin Gaye with help from Gaye’s biographer David Ritz and revealed the full extent of Gaye’s sexual proclivities. When he’d sung on “Come Get To This” that he wanted to do something “freaky” to the subject of his intense desire, I’d imagined (maybe naively) something more at the “vanilla” end of the sexual spectrum.
Instead, a May 2015 New York Post article outlined portions of Hunter’s book detailing being pressured into a “small-scale” orgy with another couple. To read in that article that Gaye had reveled in the turning of Hunter from “purity” to “perversion” ensured that I was not able to put aside the issues I had so readily discarded previously. I still listen to the album, still recognize its brilliance and still admire the artistry and Gaye’s vocal mastery in particular, but it is tainted to my ears.
I don’t expect or want anyone to feel the same way about it in the light of further information about Gaye’s sexual proclivities, but the lustre it had previously, is now tarnished. It lies with each of us to make the decision about where we draw the line between the art and artist and whether we can love the art but hate what the artist did or stood for.
For the most part, I refuse to place money into the hands of any living artists who behave grotesquely, but any artists who have passed (Gaye included) still receive my love and admiration. But sometimes my love is diminished to some extent by the actions of the artist in question and this album is one of those whose beauty is diminished somewhat in my eyes.
I wish it wasn’t, but it is.
Listen: