The Music For Our Head

Marvin Gaye was rarely happy. His career, at times, seemed to only serve as a launching pad for prying eyes to uncover the secrets of his dark private life. In an era when tabloid coverage was pervasive, but only in its early stages of flagrant populism, Gaye’s issues—drugs, debt, self-imposed exile and eventual shocking and tragic death—were covered with a notable strain of intrusiveness that often overshadowed the trailblazing American pop music itself. But the mid-‘70s were the exception. Gaye was, for the moment, basking in the afterglow of his two most acclaimed albums, 1971’s What’s Going On and 1973’s Let’s Get it On. His cocaine addiction was still a source of creative productivity and had not yet reached dangerous heights; he was at the zenith of his creative powers, consistently innovating beyond the realms of his own genre. It would only be a few years until his habit hit an inflection point and began to destroy his body and mind, and financial and legal troubles overshadow his pioneering output.