Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On: a listening guide
Released by Motown’s Tamla label in May 1971, What’s Going On is the album where a hit-making singer became an album artist. It’s best heard in one sitting.
The context
By 1970 Marvin Gaye had spent a decade as one of Motown’s most reliable hitmakers, including duets with Tammi Terrell. Terrell’s illness and death in 1970 hit him hard, and the news around him (the Vietnam War, where his brother Frankie had served, unrest in American cities, pollution) pushed him toward something different.
The title song, co-written with Renaldo “Obie” Benson of the Four Tops and Al Cleveland, didn’t fit Motown’s formula. Berry Gordy was reportedly reluctant to release it. When the single became a major hit in early 1971, Gaye was given room to make a whole album in the same spirit, which he produced himself.
How it’s built
The album runs as a song cycle. Tracks flow into one another without gaps, and musical themes return, so it plays more like a suite than a collection of singles. The sound comes from Motown’s Funk Brothers, with arrangements by David Van De Pitte, and it’s looser and jazzier than the label’s 60s records. Conga and bongos, layered saxophone and strings replace the familiar tambourine-on-the-backbeat.
Gaye also overdubbed his own voice in layers, answering and harmonising with himself. That gives the vocals a conversational quality, like several people talking at once in a room.
What to listen for
Side one
The title track opens with party chatter and Eli Fontaine’s alto saxophone before the groove settles in. Listen to the bass: James Jamerson’s line moves constantly without crowding the vocal. The side moves from the returning veteran’s perspective in “What’s Happening Brother” through the spiritual turn of “God Is Love,” with the music barely pausing. It ends with “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” which brings an environmental theme to a soul record over a gently rolling groove.
Side two
“Right On” stretches out with Latin percussion and flute, and “Wholy Holy” slows almost to a hymn. The album closes with “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),” which is darker and more rhythm-driven, and it ends by returning to the opening theme, closing the circle.
Three singles from the album reached the Billboard top ten: “What’s Going On,” “Mercy Mercy Me” and “Inner City Blues.”
Why it matters
The album showed that a Motown artist could control their own work and make a statement album that still sold. Stevie Wonder, also at Motown, won similar freedom around the same time, and his early-70s albums followed. That shift toward artist-led albums shaped the rest of 70s soul.
What to play next
- Marvin Gaye, Let’s Get It On (1973): the same freedom turned inward, from the political to the personal.
- Stevie Wonder, Innervisions (1973): the other great artist-led Motown statement. It’s on our 70s funk starter list.
- Curtis Mayfield, Super Fly (1972): social commentary with a harder groove.
- For context: how Motown worked, and the 60s soul it came from.
Hearing it on vinyl
This is an album that benefits from being played as a whole, one side at a time, which suits vinyl well. Its quiet passages and layered vocals also make surface noise and a worn stylus easy to hear. If you’re buying a used copy, clean it before the first play; our record cleaning guide explains the simplest method. The album has been reissued many times, and editions vary, so check which one you’re getting. We’ll add a specific edition here once we’ve confirmed one is in print and available.