1) Too Busy Thinking About You; 2) This Magic Moment; 3) That's The Way Love Is; 4) The End Of Our Road; 5) Seek And You Shall Find; 6) Memories; 7) Only A Lonely Man Would Know; 8) It's A Bitter Pill To Swallow; 9) More Than A Heart Can Stand; 10) Try My True Love; 11) I Got To Get To California; 12) It Don't Take Much To Keep Me.
General verdict: Way too much recycling here — a well-meant, diligently executed slump.
Although it is hard to find a single stretch in
the life of Marvin where he would find himself perfectly content with life, the
general consensus is that 1969-1970 was a particularly tough period, with the
man torn between his career problems (the «Motown grip» stiffening more than
ever, now that he was their biggest selling star) and his woman problems —
deteriorating family life with wife Anna Gordy and rapidly deteriorating health
of «little sister» Tammi. In cynical practice, this kind of trouble often
translates to great art, but certain other conditions have to be met for that —
creative freedom, for instance, which was not on the list of Motown's
priorities for Marvin and for which he was not yet able to struggle in 1969.
M.P.G., thusly named after Marvin's initials, reflects
all these things nicely: listen to it carefully and all that pain and torment
will get across to you — yet the songs are still too carefully crafted in
accordance with the regular Motown formula to act as fully credible vehicles
for Marvin's emotional state. Case in point: ʽThat's The Way Love Isʼ, a
friendly warning to a broken-hearted lover from the Whitfield/Strong team,
originally recorded by the Isley Brothers. Marvin's "I've been hurt by
love so many times..." must have singed him real hard when he delivered it
in the studio, and all of the song's components strive hard to brew up a
psychotic atmosphere — gritty bass line, dark-cloudy strings, tribal
percussion, grimy organ... then, of course, you realize that in the big scheme
of things this was nothing but a calculated attempt to capitalize on the
success of ʽGrapevineʼ, which had all the exact same ingredients, right down to
the vocal harmonies and the exact same verse structure with similar expressions
and rhymes. Except, of course, the hook was tougher and the mood was creepier.
By contrast, the second big hit single off this
album, ʽToo Busy Thinking About My Babyʼ (again, a well-worn tune, previously
recorded by The Temptations), is intentionally happy, with a joyful hook that
is more carried by the strings and The Andantes than Marvin's lead. He does his
best impression of an overjoyed fellow, yet it seems clear that he has to work
hard with himself to get into this kind of mood — play it back to back with something
like ʽPride And Joyʼ, made way back in the long gone years of innocence and
wild love for Anna Gordy, and feel the difference that half a decade can make.
He is far more natural on ʽThe End Of Our Roadʼ, a jerky, syncopated R&B
groove (rather than the straight pop of ʽToo Busyʼ) with a tiny bit of
«experimentation» in the form of a nagging, nasty sitar riff carrying the song
(at least, seems very much like a sitar to me — don't have any direct
confirmation at hand). But even that song, too, was a second hand contribution:
another former hit from Gladys Knight & The Pips, again remade from a fiery, hatred-turned-to-joy, invigorating dance
number into a darker, more disturbing personal confession by the
Whitfield/Strong team.
So you see where I am going here: M.P.G. has a lot going in its favor (an
artist in turmoil; a well-oiled team of songwriters, producers, and musicians working
at the height of the rock / R&B era), but it also suffers from the typical
sophomore curse — Motown found the strength to provide their best solo artist
with a refreshed formula, and then immediately made him redo it all over again
with predictably diminishing results. As few complaints as there can be about
the overall quality of the sound, as the tracklist goes on, there is simply not
much to say about these songs: most of the other tracks rehash the recipes of
The Temptations, The Miracles, The Four Tops, sounding cool while they are on
but not leaving much of a lasting impression. Just as ʽI Heard Through The
Grapevineʼ made a bold claim about re-establishing Marvin as an artist with his
own voice, so does M.P.G., once
again, succumb to the threat of re-establishing him as a first-rate second-hand
re-interpreter of other people's voices. He cannot be blamed for that in person
(considering all that he was going through, it is a miracle that he could work
at all, much less still sing as if his life depended on it), but Motown
executives certainly can. That said, fans will most certainly see through the
superficial blandness and feed on the sharp shards of real feeling — in a way,
an anguished and tormented Marvin Gaye doing second-hand material might be a
better proposition than a peaceful and contented Marvin Gaye engaged in
original and experimental work. (Not that the latter combination ever took
place, though).
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