In a past life, Fresh and the Qualifier used to get paid to write about music. For years they toiled through a tag-team article called Counterbalance, going head to head, hashing out the relative merits of new releases for the local Chicken Dinner Newspaper. But that was a long time ago - before the economy crashed, sending their frivolous Arts & Entertainment section down in flames.
After wandering in the wilderness, lost and directionless, Fresh and the Qualifier have returned to take on their most challenging assignment: the Greatest Albums of All-Time. Do these critics' darlings hold up, or are they just hyped up?
At number six on the list , Marvin Gaye's What's Going On has been called the best soul album of all time. But is it truly "right on" or maybe a little bit "jive"? Counterbalance finds out what's happening, brother.
Qualifier: Aah... there's nothing like relaxing on a pillowy cloud of soulfulness for a half-hour or so to settle the old nerves, eh Fresh? I feel like a new man.
Fresh: Q-Man, you nailed it. I had no idea what I was missing. I mean, I'm familiar with Marvin Gaye - who isn't? But I never spent anytime with his albums and if it weren't for this little endeavor we've embarked on, I don't think I ever would. And, oh what I would have been missing!
I have a very limited knowledge of soul music, but it seems to me that there is something a little bit different about this album compared to the soul albums that had come before it. Shed a little light on this for me.
After wandering in the wilderness, lost and directionless, Fresh and the Qualifier have returned to take on their most challenging assignment: the Greatest Albums of All-Time. Do these critics' darlings hold up, or are they just hyped up?
At number six on the list , Marvin Gaye's What's Going On has been called the best soul album of all time. But is it truly "right on" or maybe a little bit "jive"? Counterbalance finds out what's happening, brother.
Qualifier: Aah... there's nothing like relaxing on a pillowy cloud of soulfulness for a half-hour or so to settle the old nerves, eh Fresh? I feel like a new man.Fresh: Q-Man, you nailed it. I had no idea what I was missing. I mean, I'm familiar with Marvin Gaye - who isn't? But I never spent anytime with his albums and if it weren't for this little endeavor we've embarked on, I don't think I ever would. And, oh what I would have been missing!
I have a very limited knowledge of soul music, but it seems to me that there is something a little bit different about this album compared to the soul albums that had come before it. Shed a little light on this for me.
Q: Well, I'd say the main thing is that What's Going On is one of the few soul albums of its time that was constructed as an album first and foremost. Up until the late 1960s, soul was almost exclusively a singles genre. LPs were generally a few hits scattered among a handful of covers and lesser tracks. But the advent of serious rock writing gave a few artists a new perspective by the end of the decade. After blowing the hippies' minds at Monterey Pop, Otis Redding was starting to get big picture about his work, but his death seemed to set things back for a couple more years.
Ironically, the big breakthrough happened at Motown, a label that had kept its artists under pretty tight control. Maybe Berry Gordy was preoccupied with the move to L.A., the grooming of the Jackson 5, and the shtupping of Diana Ross, but he seemed unusually willing to cede territory to budding auteurs such as Stevie Wonder and, of course, Marvin Gaye.
But I take it from your response that What's Going On is to your liking, my funky friend?
F: I likes. But with my known predilection for pop music, does that come as a surprise? Gaye packed What's Going On with vocal harmonies, melody to spare and beats - oh those beats! For a closet pop freak, this is music to my hears - literally. It's just a bit more sophisticated.
But on a higher level, I love the raw emotion in this album. At the surface, this album could soothe any savage beast but there is so much anger buried in Gaye's lyrics as he rages against the system, bemoaning the plight of the under privileged and unemployed, calling for equality in a country where equality should reign supreme but seldom does.
Q: It's the sweetness of the music that turns the anger and confusion into a beautiful melancholy, which makes all the difference. Would even the most enlightened rock critics, let alone the average AM-radio listener, been as willing to listen to an ecological diatribe, a position paper on the state of the inner city and a bit of Christian sermonizing if it hadn't been wrapped in such an attractive package? Marvin Gaye had learned the lessons of Motown and taken them to the next level here.
F: This album is deep, no question. And there's no argument that Gaye pushed soul to a different level, but does this record deserve its top ten status? Was it a game-changer? Or did it achieve its status simply as a sum of its parts? Does Great Soul Music + Social Commentary = Top Ten Placement? Or is it the album's ability to transcend the decades and remain strikingly relevant to this day?
Q: I think you've tapped into something very important about rock critics, especially the first-wave boomer guys that initially embraced What's Going On. In order to qualify for this kind of rarified, Top-10-of-all-time air, a soul album would have to meet them on their terms, talking about war, drugs and other stuff that the "heads" could "dig"--preferably by using their own groovy lingo in the process. But none of that's Marvin Gaye's fault, and it doesn't diminish how great this album is.
Those of us who first heard What's Going On on CD, though, missed out on something pretty terrific--the Side 1/Side 2 shift. Notice how the tension builds throughout those first few songs, and then climaxes with "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)." That's a whole different experience when the needle lifts instead of just shifting into the more laid-back grooves of Side 2.
F: The subtleties of vinyl are a lost art, my friend. Why write in cursive when you can just dash off a quick TXT full of LOLs? At least with CDs you could get the occasional "hidden track." These days it's just MP3s. Finding a message in the meta data just doesn't have the same effect.
No matter the format, Gaye's music seems to have remained as relevant as the day it was written, much more so than the first five albums on the list. It has a timeless quality, probably because humanity is still struggling with the same problems Gaye so eloquently addresses.
Q: Wait, you haven't been writing these in cursive? I thought we agreed that we'd draw these up in longhand and then leave them with Betty who'd transfer them over to cyber format so they can go on the Web site. I mean, Betty's been with Counterbalance ever since our grandfathers founded this operation! I'm all for this "new media" you're always on about, but procedures are procedures, Fresh.
If Marvin Gaye were alive today, he'd surely be addressing issues just like these (that is, when he wasn't once again stressing the need to "get it on").
F: What are you prattling on about? All of my missives are first written in shorthand, edited and transferred to longhand and then mailed first class to Betty for transcription - how they make it to you or "online" for that matter, I haven't the foggiest (I hear it has to do with a series of tubes). In my opinion, if the written word isn't printed in a nice, neat typeface or inscribed in flowing cursive lettering, it isn't worth reading (That's why Mrs. Fresh won't send me to the store with a grocery list. I never come home with anything she has written on it). I was merely bemoaning the loss of culture that extends from the physical act of flipping a vinyl record to the eye pleasing curls of the King's longhand.
Gaye didn't really address "getting it on" on this record, which I found surprising considering singing about "getting it on" is what he is most famous for.
Q: Very well then--I'd hate to think that fine quill pen I got you for Founder's Day had gone to waste.
It's interesting to me that although he's become known for What's Going On, Gaye never really returned to the social issues that he visited on this album. In that regard, he has much in common with John Lennon, whose own "peace period" was relatively short lived (about two and a half years, in Lennon's case). I suspect that the rock star excesses of the '70s had a lot to do with both artists abandoning their lofty goals.
F: It is much easier and much more fun to sing about getting it on than it is trying to bring the nation's attention to the suffering around them. Because, in the end, who would listen to music if it didn't provide some sort of escape from our social ills? Listening to someone harp on me about racial equality and the environment gets old pretty quick. Where as listening to someone singing about getting it on will never get old.
Q: Yeah, no matter how pillowy the clouds of soulfulness are, eventually you're going to want to get back to getting it on.
Mm-hmmm...
Excuse me, I need to call my wife.
Ironically, the big breakthrough happened at Motown, a label that had kept its artists under pretty tight control. Maybe Berry Gordy was preoccupied with the move to L.A., the grooming of the Jackson 5, and the shtupping of Diana Ross, but he seemed unusually willing to cede territory to budding auteurs such as Stevie Wonder and, of course, Marvin Gaye.
But I take it from your response that What's Going On is to your liking, my funky friend?
F: I likes. But with my known predilection for pop music, does that come as a surprise? Gaye packed What's Going On with vocal harmonies, melody to spare and beats - oh those beats! For a closet pop freak, this is music to my hears - literally. It's just a bit more sophisticated.
But on a higher level, I love the raw emotion in this album. At the surface, this album could soothe any savage beast but there is so much anger buried in Gaye's lyrics as he rages against the system, bemoaning the plight of the under privileged and unemployed, calling for equality in a country where equality should reign supreme but seldom does.
Q: It's the sweetness of the music that turns the anger and confusion into a beautiful melancholy, which makes all the difference. Would even the most enlightened rock critics, let alone the average AM-radio listener, been as willing to listen to an ecological diatribe, a position paper on the state of the inner city and a bit of Christian sermonizing if it hadn't been wrapped in such an attractive package? Marvin Gaye had learned the lessons of Motown and taken them to the next level here.
F: This album is deep, no question. And there's no argument that Gaye pushed soul to a different level, but does this record deserve its top ten status? Was it a game-changer? Or did it achieve its status simply as a sum of its parts? Does Great Soul Music + Social Commentary = Top Ten Placement? Or is it the album's ability to transcend the decades and remain strikingly relevant to this day?
Q: I think you've tapped into something very important about rock critics, especially the first-wave boomer guys that initially embraced What's Going On. In order to qualify for this kind of rarified, Top-10-of-all-time air, a soul album would have to meet them on their terms, talking about war, drugs and other stuff that the "heads" could "dig"--preferably by using their own groovy lingo in the process. But none of that's Marvin Gaye's fault, and it doesn't diminish how great this album is.
Those of us who first heard What's Going On on CD, though, missed out on something pretty terrific--the Side 1/Side 2 shift. Notice how the tension builds throughout those first few songs, and then climaxes with "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)." That's a whole different experience when the needle lifts instead of just shifting into the more laid-back grooves of Side 2.
F: The subtleties of vinyl are a lost art, my friend. Why write in cursive when you can just dash off a quick TXT full of LOLs? At least with CDs you could get the occasional "hidden track." These days it's just MP3s. Finding a message in the meta data just doesn't have the same effect.
No matter the format, Gaye's music seems to have remained as relevant as the day it was written, much more so than the first five albums on the list. It has a timeless quality, probably because humanity is still struggling with the same problems Gaye so eloquently addresses.
Q: Wait, you haven't been writing these in cursive? I thought we agreed that we'd draw these up in longhand and then leave them with Betty who'd transfer them over to cyber format so they can go on the Web site. I mean, Betty's been with Counterbalance ever since our grandfathers founded this operation! I'm all for this "new media" you're always on about, but procedures are procedures, Fresh.
If Marvin Gaye were alive today, he'd surely be addressing issues just like these (that is, when he wasn't once again stressing the need to "get it on").
F: What are you prattling on about? All of my missives are first written in shorthand, edited and transferred to longhand and then mailed first class to Betty for transcription - how they make it to you or "online" for that matter, I haven't the foggiest (I hear it has to do with a series of tubes). In my opinion, if the written word isn't printed in a nice, neat typeface or inscribed in flowing cursive lettering, it isn't worth reading (That's why Mrs. Fresh won't send me to the store with a grocery list. I never come home with anything she has written on it). I was merely bemoaning the loss of culture that extends from the physical act of flipping a vinyl record to the eye pleasing curls of the King's longhand.
Gaye didn't really address "getting it on" on this record, which I found surprising considering singing about "getting it on" is what he is most famous for.
Q: Very well then--I'd hate to think that fine quill pen I got you for Founder's Day had gone to waste.
It's interesting to me that although he's become known for What's Going On, Gaye never really returned to the social issues that he visited on this album. In that regard, he has much in common with John Lennon, whose own "peace period" was relatively short lived (about two and a half years, in Lennon's case). I suspect that the rock star excesses of the '70s had a lot to do with both artists abandoning their lofty goals.
F: It is much easier and much more fun to sing about getting it on than it is trying to bring the nation's attention to the suffering around them. Because, in the end, who would listen to music if it didn't provide some sort of escape from our social ills? Listening to someone harp on me about racial equality and the environment gets old pretty quick. Where as listening to someone singing about getting it on will never get old.
Q: Yeah, no matter how pillowy the clouds of soulfulness are, eventually you're going to want to get back to getting it on.
Mm-hmmm...
Excuse me, I need to call my wife.
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