Some smooth-as-silk soul from Marvin Gaye, with a few jazz breaks thrown in. But the overall smooth sound of the music belies the social commentary underneath, wondering What’s Going On with racial prejudice, violence, poverty and even ecological damage, addressed in the track Mercy Mercy Me (later covered by Robert Palmer, as I recall). But Gaye’s message is one of hope, driven by faith. There are various tracks that address the nature of faith (God Is Love, Wholly Holy) and how it can be used to inspire hope in the face of seeming endless darkness.
All of the tracks blend together, making it feel like all of one piece – it gets called a “song cycle”, and is unusual as a soul concept album (at least one that's not the soundtrack to a Blaxploitation film). As I’ve noted before, I seem to prefer music with a few rough corners to it, so the smooth sound isn’t really my thing, but there are a couple of funky tracks on here – Right On, and Inner City Blues – that stood out for me. Not least the mix of darkness and hope in Inner City Blues. And I think it’s one of those albums where a closer examination of the lyrics really opens up the album and reveals the hidden depths. Partly perhaps because of the orchestral backing in places, I was thinking of Gaye as a soul Sinatra – making it all seem effortless when in reality there’s a lot of effort going on (no pun intended).
I like Gaye’s own explanation of What's Going On as a “love” song, despite deliberate attempts to distance himself from the simpler themes of his earlier work and become more overtly political. Even if it was just him trying to sell the idea of the song to Berry Gordy, that the song is about “love and understanding, trying to understand what’s going on” with race riots and police brutality, I think that’s the crux of the album – it acknowledges the brutal realities of the times but ultimately refuses to be brought down by them.
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