— Barry McIlheney
Marvin Gaye's What's Going On is a classic of seventies pop and soul. Keen to free himself from the Motown straitjacket of solo numbers and duets penned in house, the singer began seeking out his own collaborators to set his vision to music. When recordings done at the famed Hitsville USA studio in Detroit proved unsatisfactory, he transplanted to Los Angeles where he started from scratch. The resulting LP was (and still is) a revelation. Few would have ever thought that the black Sinatra that Motown head Berry Gordy had envisioned would have had something so beautifully crafted and well thought out (the only aspect that wouldn't have surprised anyone was how well the man could sing).
What's Going On ushered in Gaye's period as an albums artist. Follow ups Trouble Man, Let's Get It On, I Want You and Here, My Dear are all very different from each other but they all share the quality of having a consistent mood throughout. When rock hacks noodle on about concept albums they rarely mention Gaye but there may not have been anyone better at crafting them. The title track of What's Going On opens the album and it then segues into the very similar "What's Happening Brother"; the former is meant to create a dialog with someone who is hostile towards opposition to the war in Vietnam and the rule of Richard Nixon while the latter is about catching someone else (likely a veteran just back from 'Nam) up on current events. Themes shift from religion to ecology and on to inner city strife but all nine of its tunes maintain a kind of chilled intensity to them. By the time he got to the alimony-paying Here, My Dear (his true masterpiece), Gaye had been able to create essentially the same song again and again over the course of a sprawling hour and a quarter double album and the result was astonishing.
Prince didn't have Marvellous Marvin's singing voice but he was his artistic superior in every other way and his rise to pop dominance coincided with the demise of the Prince of Soul. He didn't pick up where Gay or anyone else left off because he had simply too much ground to cover. Always independent, the Purple One kept his distance from record company executives and showbiz glitz by keeping to himself in his native Minnesota. If he had any restraints, they were of his own creation.
Gaye and Prince aren't terribly similar but one thing they both shared was a propensity for leaving projects unfinished or unreleased. Gaye had an innate laziness to blame but Prince's reasons for abandoning various works over the years are much more complex. He would sometimes complete an entire album and have it ready for release before deciding at the eleventh hour to have it shelved, such as his famed Black Album which he suddenly decided was "evil". He was also a perfectionist and had a thing for butting heads with his longtime record label Warners.
Prince's supposed attempt at his own What's Going On goes back to previous albums that were subsequently ditched. Dream Factory had been a longstanding project that was meant to be a much more collaborative affair with members of The Revolution than what the normally dictatorial leader was accustomed to. Giving the likes of Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin some creative control may have seemed like a good idea (the two were capable enough that we'll be encountering the duo in their own right on this blog before long) but it didn't suit Prince's style, which would have been not unlike Duke Ellington allowing members of his vast orchestra a say in their solos and recordings. Unsatisfied with the results, Dream Factory eventually fell apart and so, too, did his loyal band.
We then come to Camille, yet another aborted project. Using a female alter ego of the same name, Prince presumably sought to channel his feminine side into an album. I suppose it's an interesting concept and something we shouldn't be the least bit surprised he ever embarked upon but I can't say I'm yearning to give it a listen someday. Prince's voice was hardly butch to begin with yet the very idea of him having his vocals altered to a higher register makes me shudder. The album was in the can but it was nixed and it's likely that Warners got in the way. Undeterred, he went straight back into the studio for an ambitious triple album called Crystal Ball. Again, it was mostly finished but the suits didn't fancy putting out such a giant package. (It's surprising that Prince didn't have more pull with his record label back in those days but they must have correctly realised that his muse wasn't as commercial as Michael Jackson's or Madonna's)
Dream Factory, Camille and Crystal Ball failed to emerge but that meant that there was a glut of unreleased material, a sizable amount even for someone as prolific as Prince. Having rejected a pair of albums in the past few months, it behooved Warners to green light the double album Sign o' the Times. Far from being just a work of social consciousness, the LP covers a lot of thematic ground. His usual perviness is dialled back but there are still a great deal of more mature love songs. The fact that the sources of this material were so wide ranging is a credit to his ability to make the album hang together as well as it does. Indeed, the mood is so consistent that it could well be his Here, My Dear rather than his What's Going On.
As for the single itself, "Sign o' the Times" is really good though it can be difficult to pin down exactly why. It isn't flamboyant like so many of his previous hits and the arrangement is quite sparse. This isn't so remarkable in the context of his overall career but as a mid to late eighties pop superstar it isn't what listeners would have expected. Parade's dense, European soundscapes did set something of a precedent for this move but his more recent work only cemented it. The beat is simple and there are only flourishes of jangly guitar. Yet, restraint suits Prince: those over the top theatrics, those unnecessarily long solos, that voice that hits those high notes far more often than I ever would request: not present here and not missed.
So, the album isn't his What's Going On but how do the title tracks compare? On the surface they may seem similar but there are differences. There's a sense that Marvin Gaye really was concerned with the state of the world (even if his interest was fleeting as he moved on to themes of seduction and humiliating his ex-wife on future albums) while Prince is merely observing it. He reels off a laundry list of troubles in the world in the concerned manner of someone watching the evening news (something he even acknowledges with "you turn on the telly and every other story is tellin' you somebody died"). These then build up into a frenzied fear of a nuclear war and the end of life as we know it. He once encouraged everyone to dance as if The Bomb was on its way yet here he is planning to start a family ("we'll call him Nate...if it's a boy": his choice of baby names being a sadly telegraphed excuse to rhyme something with 'late': Prince wasn't always the greatest lyricist). A maturing Prince was no bad thing.
The Sign o' the Times album became a landmark and was his best work since 1999. Purple Rain was like more of the same but without the thrill and spark of its predecessor, Around the World in a Day was good fun but too much of a stylistic exercise to take completely seriously and Parade was uncharacteristically dry. Most artists thrive within the confines of the thirty-five to fifty minute album length but here was a guy who seemed to be at his best with the double album. So much music to make with so much to get out and so much left in the vaults, Prince needn't worry about concepts since he was a theme unto himself.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Johnny Hates Jazz: "Shattered Dreams"
So, I was eleven and I was at an age in which I was torn between the things of my childhood and growing up. Puberty was coming, I began thinking about having a girlfriend someday (not as soon as I was expecting but still) and dreaming about being a singer or an actor. For some reason, "Shattered Dreams" became this song of aspirational adulthood. Now that I am all grown up I know just how hollow this is. Clark Datchler is one of those classic puts-so-much-of-himself-into-something-so-meaningless vocalists that I can't help but chuckle at how pained he has convinced himself to sound. It would be a guilty pleasure save for the lack of pleasure to be found. They always said Johnny Hates Jazz were naff but I was convinced that they had to be good. They were right. Let the kids with big dreams for the future have 'em.
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