Marvin Gaye's What's Goin On

            Marvin was a soul singer from Motown Records, prior to “What’s Goin On” he wrote a lot of love songs. He was a lover not a fighter or protester. He started getting into politics and what was going on in his life this album.

            He discussed which was happening in regards to the Vietnam War with the soldiers and the drugs they got addicted to after the war. He was also very upset with all the racism and the civil rights issues that were going on.He had a lot of problems trying to release the song. Berry Gordy hated the new song and the new approach he had with his lyrics. Gordy tried to not have it released; even Quality Control disapproved the song. 

            When they were recording the engineer at the time accidently doubled the vocals for Marvin to listen back and he liked how it sounded. The new material Marvin had was special because of how he expressed his lyrics was on another level, times were rough and on “What’s Goin On” the saxophone intro was created with a sax player getting warmed up and practicing and the engineer recorded that and Marvin approved of it. The sax player was ready to go and he was already done before he knew it.

           The impression that Marvin Gaye left t was that he was very soulful human being; to me personally he is the best soul singer ever. What Marvin accomplished was making people open up to see what is going on around them. He covered topics in his music no one thought of. He expressed himself so lovely, when he sang one would have felt what he was saying in his voice. He completely changed his songwriting and made something more conscious. It did very well commercially even though Gordy thought if would have cause problems because of what he was discussing. I’m glad Marvin Gaye stood by his beliefs and music.