What's Going On is the eleventh studio album by American soul singer Marvin Gaye. It was released on May 21, 1971, by the Motown Records subsidiary label Tamla. Recorded between 1970 and 1971 in sessions at Hitsville U.S.A., Golden World, United Sound Studios in Detroit, and at The Sound Factory in West Hollywood, California, it was Gaye's first album to credit him as producer and to credit Motown's in-house session musicians, known as the Funk Brothers. The album was an immediate commercial and critical success, and came to be viewed by music historians as a classic of 1970s soul. Multiple critics, musicians, and many in the general public consider What's Going On to be one of the greatest albums of all time and a landmark recording in popular music. In 1985, writers on British music weekly the NME voted it the best album of all time. In 2020, it was ranked number one on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
What's Going On is the eleventh studio album by American soul singer Marvin Gaye. It was released on May 21, 1971, by the Motown Records subsidiary label Tamla. Recorded between 1970 and 1971 in sessions at Hitsville U.S.A., Golden World, United Sound Studios in Detroit, and at The Sound Factory in West Hollywood, California, it was Gaye's first album to credit him as producer and to credit Motown's in-house session musicians, known as the Funk Brothers. The album was an immediate commercial and critical success, and came to be viewed by music historians as a classic of 1970s soul. Multiple critics, musicians, and many in the general public consider What's Going On to be one of the greatest albums of all time and a landmark recording in popular music. In 1985, writers on British music weekly the NME voted it the best album of all time. In 2020, it was ranked number one on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
What's Going On is not only Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist…
What's Going On is not only Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist. With What's Going On, Gaye meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past – as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty…
Motown's "Prince Of Soul," Marvin Gaye, was already a hit artist for nearly a decade when, in 1971, he reached new heights with his album What's Going On. An immediate landmark recording, it was the first of Gaye's albums to break the top ten of Billboard's Top LPs, and quickly became Motown's best-selling record. To this day, What's Going On is hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time, earning the number one spot on Rolling Stone magazine's 2020 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time."
Motown's "Prince Of Soul," Marvin Gaye, was already a hit artist for nearly a decade when, in 1971, he reached new heights with his album What's Going On. An immediate landmark recording, it was the first of Gaye's albums to break the top ten of Billboard's Top LPs, and quickly became Motown's best-selling record. To this day, What's Going On is hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time, earning the number one spot on Rolling Stone magazine's 2020 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time."
Lost somewhat in the bounty of previously unreleased material distributed across the deluxe editions of Marvin Gaye's 1971-1981 studio albums, this performance appeared in totality on the second disc for What's Going On. Eighteen years later, newly mixed by John Morales, it gets an appropriate separate release with in-depth contextualization from Gaye biographer David Ritz. Context here is crucial, and there is a lot of it. For starters, the occasion was Washington, D.C.'s Marvin Gaye Day, the events of which culminated in the reluctantly present singer's first concert in four years.
What's Going On is not only Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist. With What's Going On, Gaye meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past – as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty…