I was close to giving it a 1 but the album is not terrible just uninspiring.
I actually like some soul music but it tends to be the odd track rather than a whole album.

For completeness (and nerdishness)


In 1985, writers on British music weekly the NME voted it best album of all time.

In 1997, What's Going On was named the 17th greatest album of all time in a poll conducted in the United Kingdom by HMV Group, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM.

In 1997, The Guardian ranked the album number one on its list of the 100 Best Albums Ever.

In 1998 Q magazine readers placed it at number 97.

A 1999 critics' poll conducted by The Guardian named it the "Greatest Album of the 20th Century".

In 2001 the TV network VH1 placed it at number 4.

In 2003, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

What's Going On was ranked number 6 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, one of three Gaye albums to be included, succeeded by 1973's Let's Get It On (number 165) and 1978's Here, My Dear (number 462). The album is Gaye's highest-ranking entry on the list, as well as several other publications' lists.

In 2004, the album's title track was ranked number four on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the 2011 remastered deluxe edition of the album received an average score of 100, based on ten reviews.

In a revised 2020 list in Rolling Stone magazine - this time voted on by musicians instead of music critics - the album moved up to the top spot, replacing The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

A bunch of old white blokes sitting around and discussing, critically, a classic soul album?  What could possibly go wrong? 

Nail. Head.

Couldn't help laughing last Friday morning. Picked up my mobile and was about to ferret around the site when, guess what came on the radio? Not just any radio station! Radio 4, that bastion of enlightenment. It was one of the cricketer Michael Holding's Desert Island Disc picks. Put my phone back down and had a listen.

Couldn't help reflecting that the world is split into two camps: those that do, and those that criticize the doers. Like they say, the easiest thing in the world is to be a critic; any idiot can do it. Not everyone can do, though. Paul McCartney, regarded as one of the most successful songwriters of popular music. How many albums has he had out? How many having genuine merit? Ask his opinion and he'd say they all did, otherwise he wouldn't have put them out. Point being that, at times, artists aren't always the best judge of their own material. Perhaps if he was alive today he might agree and say Aye, I was being a bit self-indulgent there. Then again, 50 years on, it's still described as "landmark".

An Apology.

I don't usually follow this thread. As such, I had it in my head that the scoring was out of 10! And so the low scoring seemed pretty mean. Out of 5, it's a different matter.

Interestingly this is the second album this month that I happen to own and have already heard. I purchased a copy of "What's Going On" about 5 years ago, knowing it was very high up the best albums of all time and interested to here it. 

This is what Wiki has to say about it "What's Going On is a concept album with most of its songs segueing into the next and has been categorized as a song cycle. The narrative established by the songs is told from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran returning to his home country to witness hatred, suffering, and injustice. Gaye's introspective lyrics explore themes of drug abuse, poverty, and the Vietnam War. He has also been credited with promoting awareness of ecological issues before the public outcry over them had become prominent."

At the time Gaye was deeply depressed triggered by the failure of his marriage and the sad death of his singing partner Temmi Terril, plus he had drug problems and IRS issues. He had already attempted to kill himself and was dis-heartened with the record industry and Berry Gordy. He was trying to find his way back and make a meaningful statement that was of value rather than just pumping out, as he put it, trite love songs. 

So I think if you take it into context and the time it was released it was quite a controversial and trail-blazing album, I think this is why it is sited as a ground breaking album. It might not be the best thing there is musically and some of the songs may seem a bit lame to us nowadays, but it was certainly out there back then, also I think it set the scene for some other artists to explore what they produced and the statements/impact they wanted their songs to have. There were other protest singers at the time, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan at times, and a few more, Steppenwolf released "Monster" in '69 a similarly themed Vietnam protest album, which is a classic IMO. 

So back to Marvin Gaye's effort, for me it is not a terrible album musically, I agree aspects of it are very similar and in fact at times you could easily be forgiven if you were not sure if you were at the end or beginning of the album. I think this is part of the point of the album, I suspect Gaye wanted the lyrics to be the focal point of the album to get his message across and the music just to be the underlying support for it, hence why it is that way it is, although I could be wrong.

Whether you like it or not Marvin Gaye has a wonderful expressive voice and puts his soul into the record, also the album as a whole is beautifully produced and mixed. For me I would not site it as the best soul album of all time, I would probably consider Superfly by Curtis Mayfield, Otis Redding - Otis Blue or James Brown's - Live at the Apollo, all classics.

So for me taking into account what I have already said I give "What's Going On" 3/5, but probably deserves more.