Entry 5: What's Going On

During an era of pain and anger brought on by the Vietnam War, Marvin Gaye brought in a music movement of love. Marvin Gaye had always been a clean cut pop star, releasing songs of love, romance and happiness. But with What's Going On Marvin Gaye wanted to use his style to protest what was going on in the world. When he first started into the process of Whats Going On, Gaye was often questioned about how he was changing his themes and why he wanted to make painful protest music. But this was never the idea he had. Marvin Gaye wanted to release something that protested through the idea of love, something that spoke out in a way no one else spoke out in. The problem with Whats Going On was that nobody understood it. After he finished the album the record label wouldn't even release it, despite other powerful peoples protests upon hearing how fantastic the album was. They thought it wouldn't do well because it used old musical ideas and instrumentation concepts. But what nobody released was how Gaye had taken old musical themes and twisted them into a new form of music, how he'd taken old protest concepts and morphed them into songs of a different emotional vibration. In the recording process he preferred strong performance over practiced quality by using people who really brought energy to the music like using football players he knew was back up singers or even recording musicians and using their warm up takes. He created songs that were meant to open eyes rather than make them cry. As a musician and listener, I love this album. I like the sound of it and the feel. Its so comfortable and warm, but yet it feels almost empowering in a good way. I feel like Marvin Gaye did accomplish his goal of protest in a new way.