What’s Going On

I quite like the music. I particularly liked What's Going On, Mercy Mercy Me and Inner City Blues. But I probably wasn't in the right mood when I heard it. In this respect, the rating is worse than it might have been at another time.
3/5

De eerste albums prikkelden nog wel mijn nieuwsgierigheid. Want Marvin is een grootheid waar ik weinig van kende. Nu we hem voor de derde keer krijgen, kijk ik er tegenop. Weer die saaie man? Zo geen zin in.

We starten met bekende kost. En natuurlijk, de kwaliteit mag duidelijk zijn. Maar het is ook echt wel gedateerd. En als het album het hiervan moet hebben, dan is het het echt niet waard om in de lijst te staan. Zeker omdat het dus al de derde schotel van Marvin is die we geserveerd krijgen.

Eindoordeel: Wederom saai

Buttery

I hope one day I will love this as much as everyone else seems to.

3.5/5

Really strong start and really strong finish. A lot of stuff in the middle didn't really live up to the hype, though. Good songs sung with a great voice, but the album overall isn't what I'd call a great album.

Great album, this was quite a healing experience after I got his abysmal "Here, My Dear" just a few days ago. I've always appreciated this one for what it is, and really enjoy the title track, Mercy Mercy Me, Right On, and Inner City Blues. But I think maybe you had to be around at the time to fully appreciate the significance of this album (I was not). Elements of it are very dated, particularly the 3 really overtly religious songs. Those just don't do much for me - probably why I'm not really into the more gospel side of R&B. Really solid 8/10 for me though.

When my dog attacked an armadillo in the yard at 4:00 am I ran outside shouting "What's going on?!!" and that was a lot more chaotic then this album. Great bass though.

I can think of some people in the world who should listen to this record.

"What's going on", "Mercy mercy me (The ecology)" y "Inner city blues" me han encantado. Me gusta como suena el disco en general, con auriculares es un gustazo. Una pena que muriera tan joven.

The quality of this album far exceeds my enjoyment unfortunately

A couple good songs in here. What’s Going on and Mercy Mercy Me were decent. Right On was the best track. The rest of the songs were meh at best. I was going to give a three star but Save the Children is straight up one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard so that knocked it down to a two for me.

Let's go baby, I'm in for some soullllll. Though its themes are a little overly saccharine for me. God is Love is a little too much. Inner City Blues is a bop though.

Nothing to add. Stone cold five.

Gorgeous. Mercy Mercy Me is an all time great song and the rest of the album is smoothy pretty and fun.

It’s decent. A couple classic bangers, but there is a good amount of filler in there as well. Not a lot to say about it. Could be a 2.5, maybe? But I’m good with 3.

Surely there's nothing left to say about the vocal performance on this one: deeply emotional, sensitive and hyper controlled, fully attuned to the music. The backing band is incredible and the sound is amazing - lush, vibrant, and rich but full of room and atmosphere - some of the best bass playing recorded to go with memorable horns parts (the sax intro to What's Going On has to be the among most recognizable few notes), keys, organ, and the full motown thing. In that vein though, there are couple of schmaltzy string songs where there's an overdose of Maj7 chords and the vocals get a bit too wailing. This always gets a lot of credit as a protest album, but the politics are really pretty anodyne - "won't somebody think of the babies" "why are there so many problems" "who did this?" "save the children" it's all pretty apolitical really especially considering what was happening in Black politics at the time.

First listen to this. Lush and Gaye's voice is obviously perfection, but it's strange to listen to possibly the most sincere album ever in 2025 - the lyrics bring me out as much as the music brings me in

O que está acontecendo?

boring

This album is just gorgeous. I’m not an expert on soul by any stretch but this one just makes you feel things. Always into a good concept album as well.