Marvin Gaye: What's Going On (2LP, 50th anniversary edition) [HIP-O]

Why you'll love it

This 50th anniversary set comes on two 180g LPs in a heavy tip-on gatefold with lyrics, plus printed sleeves carrying a new essay by Hanif Abdurraqib. Rolling Stone named What's Going On the greatest album of all time in 2020 and again in 2023.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 50th anniversary edition
• 180g vinyl
• Tip-on gatefold jacket with lyrics
• Bonus LP of rare cuts and mono single mixes
• Printed inner sleeves with essay
• Stereo mix

About the album

Up to 1970 Marvin Gaye was Motown's smoothest hitmaker. Then he went home, grew a beard and wrote a song cycle seen through the eyes of a Vietnam veteran coming back to an America he barely recognised. What's Going On was the first album to credit him as producer and it gave the Funk Brothers, the Motown house band who played on everything, a credit on the sleeve.

The songs flow into each other like one long conversation, all strings, congas, sax and layered vocals. The title track went to No. 2 on the Hot 100, and "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" followed it into the top 10, making him the first male solo artist with three top 10 hits from one album. "Save the Children," "Wholy Holy" and "Right On" are just as moving. The bonus LP adds a stripped version of the title song, mixes without strings or horns, a "Symphony" demo and the mono singles, including the B-side "Sad Tomorrows."

It sat at No. 1 on Billboard's Soul LPs chart for nine weeks and stayed on the Top LPs chart for more than a year. Fifty-odd years on, the question in the title is still a very good one, and this remains the best way we know of asking it.

Also at Kops: more Marvin Gaye on vinyl · browse Motown

Tracklist

Listen

On Tamla / Motown / UMe, a reissue of the 1971 album.