Comments on: What Went On: How Marvin Gaye Killed Soul https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2000/05/what-went-on-how-marvin-gaye-killed-soul Lollards in the high church of low culture Thu, 14 Jan 2016 10:43:50 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: David https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2000/05/what-went-on-how-marvin-gaye-killed-soul/comment-page-1#comment-624714 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:48:30 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2000/05/what-went-on-how-marvin-gaye-killed-soul/#comment-624714 First let me say I understand the subversive nature of the blog.
Still, writing for the sake of opposition rather than truth seems as disingenuous as you claim Marvin to be. To me, “What’s Goin On” is no less than the standout fusion of orchestra and soul, the european orchestral tradition and the jazz/soul tradition. Lyrically, it doesn’t take a genius to write in a detailed or sweeping way – anyone can micromanage specific issues (see Marvin’s “you’re the man” line about 70’s bussing issues) yet a newspaper-style investigatory report would choke the music. Still, assuming you want vivid, howabout songs about sending boys off to die, trigger happy policemen, and the entire dramatic confessionals of “Flyin High” and “What’s Happenin Brother”. “Right On” is more morally ambiguous than one would think, only rescued by the stark bridge. Musically, the skillful way the orchestra is handled here does not make supper club music, and the electric bass subverts any hint of easy listening. “Wholy Holy” is as “vague” as any hymn (read: universal). Surprisingly, a lot of the record is introverted, an intimacy and melancholy that echews disingenuous spectacle. Finally, there is no way you can speculate on whether his empathy was real – i’ve never heard that perspective in years of reading Gaye criticism, listening to the rest of his music, interviews etc., thus to me your view is invalidated by its very eccentricity. To the contrary, the howls and melisma seem to arise from this empathy and pain.
…what exactly is so ‘insightful’ about the early Motown catalog? Symbolically perhaps, but musically they remind me of a reworking of the tin pan alley idiom – “gems” in the sense of their inventiveness restrained by economy, yet as most songs are, they’re only a microcosm of a real work – they build to the climax in less than a minute with little reason. It is my experience that this 00’s era, so scared of sincerity, prefers the paltry over the epic, as if an album-length scale (or any grand gestures) should be beyond the reach of pop music (or art in general). “irresistible beats”, “high impact”, OK, but those are sound rather than idea-based concepts, and if anything, the beat-based, hook-conscious pop-catchiness of early Motown presages disco, while “What’s Goin On” seems to be a singularity. To me disco seems totally irrelevant in this article.
I do share your opinion that the media often kills true expression – as the minute they are praised or talked about outside of the listening experience, works become distorted and lose their direct spirit. It is best to listen as if you never heard anything outside the music itself (classical music has had an ‘extramusical’ vs. ‘absolute music’ debate for 150+ years). Example – critics calling Marvin ‘brave’ seems to reflect back on Marvin as if he said to himself “I’m going to do this so I can appear brave” – yet in reality was he brave? I’d say yes, based on his own creative boundaries at the time, “What’s Goin On” is almost a complete break, taking courage for any artist. Yet he doesn’t need medals for it, the work’s creation and existence are his reward. Now, were they platitudes if they were sincere for him? Isn’t a form of artifice or rhetoric contrived to avoid platitude the more artificial? To me sincerity is the key. In the music itself, of course the way he sings is a form of rhetoric, a direct emotional appeal – but most music is directly emotional. For Stravinsky, “music is essentially powerless to express anything but itself”, therefore belittling the “sound and technique” eliminates the whole of the music itself, leaving nothing but the text.
Now hypothetically say it was the only work left on earth, an extension of “the work as its own universe” idea. It would probably be one of the more comprehensive works of music/text that could ‘say something’ to a future society about us. Can “Sgt Pepper” say the same, with its irreverence and artifice? “What’s Goin On” is a microcosm/overview of religious, political and emotional views. In this “universe unto itself” context, nothing would be platitude, rather these statements would re-emerge as the universal concepts they are. (athiests would seem to lack represention) Still, even Marvin didn’t like to print lyrics on his albums, disliking divorcing words from the music and masquerading them as stand-alone poetry or worse still, instructional prose.

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By: Doctor Mod https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2000/05/what-went-on-how-marvin-gaye-killed-soul/comment-page-1#comment-35084 Sat, 16 Sep 2006 17:54:20 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2000/05/what-went-on-how-marvin-gaye-killed-soul/#comment-35084 I never thought of it that way. But, you know, you’ve raised some good–and thoroughly valid–points here, and I think you might be bloody well right.

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