Notes From D. R.

I never would have realized the greatness of a certain album were it not for the mediocrity of a certain movie.

In June 2001, I went to see the Martin Lawrence film What’s The Worst That Could Happen? solely because it had been filmed in Boston the year before; the film’s production had been the source of much local media coverage in the summer of 2000, and I wanted to see if the movie was worth all of the traffic headaches the production caused.

In short, it wasn’t—the film was an endless procession of lame jokes, unfunny set pieces, and obnoxious overacting from Lawrence, Danny DeVito, and John Leguizamo. However, there was one unforgettable song on the soundtrack—“Music” by Erick Sermon, a tune based on a sample from the 1982 song “Turn On Some Music” by Marvin Gaye.

Unable to get the song out of my head, I purchased Gaye’s Midnight Love album. “Turn On Some Music” was excellent, as was the remainder of the album—in fact, Midnight Love was such an accomplished work that I would have gladly paid twice as much for the album if I knew how great it would be beforehand.

This October marks the 25th anniversary of Midnight Love’s release; it was Gaye’s final album of original material. For all of the acclaim that 1971’s What’s Going On and 1973’s Let’s Get It On have received, Midnight Love is every bit as outstanding as those two classics.

There is a sense of emotional uplift that fills the entire album, a feeling that the words and music have been created by a truly free individual. Such freedom stands in stark contrast to the emotional bondage that defined Gaye’s life in the twelve years prior to the production of this album—the death of Tammi Terrell, his two failed marriages, his split with Motown, his drug and tax problems. It seems as though Gaye, weighed down by such troubles, used the Midnight Love recording sessions as an opportunity to clear his mind. The result was a tremendous critical and commercial success (although one wonders how much more successful the album would have been had Michael Jackson’s Thriller not been released two months later).

Sadly, the problems that consumed Gaye’s life in the years prior to Midnight Love returned with a vengeance. Although he won two Grammys in early-1983, he was excoriated in the press for his “unconventional” version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the 1983 NBA All-Star game. His tour to promote Midnight Love was interrupted by mysterious health woes and plagued by bizarre behavior; a July 13, 1983 Boston Globe review of a Gaye concert on Boston Common noted that at one point, the singer “…picked up a rose offered by a fan and started chewing one of its petals.” (That same month, Gaye told a Boston television station that someone was trying to kill him by poisoning his food.) After the tour ended, Gaye famously moved back in with his parents in an attempt to subdue his personal demons; the effort failed, as Gaye was shot to death by his father on April 1, 1984 following a heated argument.

Gaye died one day before his forty-fifth birthday. Yet in so many ways, he still lives on: you can’t listen to a song by Usher, R. Kelly or Ne-Yo without hearing Marvin Gaye’s voice. Midnight Love established a standard of R & B excellence that these artists can only emulate; it’s almost impossible to envision these artists ever surpassing Gaye in terms of quality.

Would that Midnight Love received its just due as an excellent Marvin Gaye album. It was neither a “socially conscious” work in the vein of What’s Going On nor an artistically trailblazing work in the vein of Let’s Get It On, but like those earlier albums, Midnight Love is an example of Gaye working to his fullest potential. One only wishes he could have conquered his internal battles—and continued to maintain his unique standard of greatness throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.