The collapse of Marvin Gaye and the birth of What’s Going On

The album that Marvin Gaye made amid depression, debts, and losses.

It's so hard to imagine that, in such a vast album that has remained relevant after 50 years, there is a story so heavy behind it. The first listening of What’s Going On may seem light, surrounded by songs with a unique sound, a groove, and the purest roots of soul that make one float.

But everything there was born from chaos. Marvin Gaye wrote, produced, and released this record at a time when nothing around him made sense anymore.

The death of Tammi Terrell, his stage partner and one of the few people he fully trusted, was the first real collapse. She suffered several fainting spells during performances alongside him, and in March 1970, after years of surgeries and brain tumor diagnoses, she passed away at the age of 24. Marvin went into deep mourning. He even said he didn't want to sing anymore. The partnership with Tammi was not just musical; she was his emotional counterpart, and losing her left an irreparable gap.

At the same time, his marriage to Anna Gordy, 17 years older and sister of the Motown boss, had been deteriorating for years. Mutual betrayals, power struggles, and constant conflicts led Marvin to live in an increasingly unstable relationship, marked by separations and temporary reconciliations. And this was reflected both in his personal life and in professional negotiations with the record label.

His mental health was collapsing along with his finances, now that he owed the IRS - the Federal Government of the United States - Marvin owed significant amounts for not declaring his earnings correctly. And beyond the money, he felt he had lost control of his own image. And Motown, which saw him only as a pretty face for love songs, denied the creative freedom he now demanded.

Motown, on its part, did not see room for transformation. Marvin was an important piece in the machinery of the label: sweet voice, romantic repertoire, good looks. He represented the ideal of a successful Black singer within mainstream standards. But that no longer interested him. When he proposed songs with social criticism, spirituality, and political perspective, Berry Gordy shut it down. He said that it wouldn’t sell. That protest wasn’t business.

The single “What’s Going On” was rejected by the label. Berry Gordy said it was “the worst thing” he had ever heard. Marvin, tired, confronted him: either they released that, or he would stop recording. The single was released in January 1971, reached the top of the R&B charts and second place on the overall Billboard. The success forced Motown to back down, and that was when Marvin Gaye took over everything. He produced the entire album, composed and recorded as he wanted, and delivered to the label a work that did not fit anything that Motown had produced until then.

The entire album is told from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran who returns home and finds a broken country.

This lens allows Marvin to discuss war, police brutality, racism, hunger, environmental crisis, and urban alienation without leaving his own backyard. His brother, Frankie Gaye, had returned from the war shortly before, and conversations with Marvin directly influenced the album's creation. “What’s Happening Brother” is a direct portrait of that feeling of displacement: “Can’t find no work, can’t find no job, my friend.” The America that promised a fresh start to its soldiers was returning them to marginalization.

In “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”, Marvin anticipated the environmental agenda with frightening clarity. He talks about oil in the oceans, pollution in the waters, radiation in the air, all wrapped in a smooth, almost meditative groove.

The track became a boiling point of a discussion that would still be taken seriously much later, decades later, and Marvin was already raising the issue at a time when artists rarely ventured into this field. “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” speaks of the oppression experienced in urban centers, especially by Black men: “Crime is increasing / Trigger happy policing,” a central theme of discussions after the Vietnam War.

The album has nine tracks and none of them are disposable. All are connected to each other, whether musically or by narrative. There is an atmosphere built there that Marvin thoughtfully designed, which makes you listen to the songs for their quality and all the complex sound instrumentation, but once you understand a verse, it will completely change your perception of the enjoyable sound that wraps the album.

The arrangements are by David Van De Pitte, but the firm hand is Marvin's, including in the way he coordinated the studio musicians, demanding specific interpretations and details in execution. A striking example is bassist James Jamerson, who recorded lying on the floor because he was drunk but delivered one of the most respected performances in soul music.

The most impressive thing about What’s Going On may not be its technique or its cohesion, but the fact that all of this emerged at Marvin Gaye's most fragile moment. He was in deep depression, avoiding the public, avoiding friends, even considering giving up everything and attempting a career in American football.

He had accumulated debts and could not communicate with Berry Gordy. In this state, he created one of the best albums ever produced, capable of completely changing the course of Soul Music.

The album's release in May 1971 was a turning point. It became the best-selling album in Motown's history up to that point, contrary to what the label's executives had predicted. It had three singles in the top 10 of Billboard and occupied the R&B charts for over a year. But the most lasting impact was another one; Marvin Gaye paved the way for artists from the label itself to seek creative autonomy. Neither Motown nor Soul Music was the same after this album.

Over time, What’s Going On became a symbol. It was elected the greatest album of all time by Rolling Stone in 2020. It influenced artists of all generations in samples, reinterpretations, documentaries, and even contemporary soundtracks, like Da 5 Bloods by Spike Lee, which used the acapella version of the title track to mark one of the film's central scenes.

May it never be forgotten.