After ten albums of the sexiest R&B mankind has ever known, Marvin Gaye’s world fell apart.

His longtime writing partner passed away from cancer. His wife left him. He was caught between the IRS on one side and a stifling record deal with Motown Records on the other. He was troubled over his brother fighting in Vietnam, ande was fighting his own losing battle against his cocaine addiction.

He was a rising star internationally, but he felt like a fraud. After a night pondering over a handgun in his hotel room, he decided it was time for a change. He grew a beard, pierced his ear, and found religion.

Then he dropped What’s Going On, a masterful and poignant protest album.

While most of Gaye’s output fits along a spectrum with inoffensive pop on one end and baby-makin’ music on the other, What’s Going On (notice that the title is not a question) is something else entirely. This record is the sound of a man’s grieving, arranged for chamber pop orchestra and cut to wax.

He mourns the war. He mourns the plight of Blackness in America. He lays out his lament before the Lord and pleads for our country’s salvation.

It’s a massive personal statement, and one that is made only more impressive by the composition. Gaye is accompanied by lush strings, bells, winds, as well as the traditional guitar/bass/drums set up. The songs all bleed into eachother without stopping, creating a single, cohesive work.

Many of the tracks are just as pointed today as they did in 1971. “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)” mourns the destruction of the earth. “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” points the finger at exploitative CEOs and “trigger happy policing.” The helpless feeling he espouses while he watches corrupt politicians and oppressive systems is all too familiar to us forty-seven years later. The title track’s opening lines are just as apt today: “Mother, mother, mother: there’s far too many of you crying. Brother, brother, brother: there’s far too many of you dying.”

Music nerd that I am, I spend far too much time reading through various publications’ “best albums ever” list. And more often than not, you can find What’s Going On nestled between the Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, and the Rolling Stones (these lists have a very strong bias towards white rock and roll from the 60s ). And that’s not an accident. This is as important a statement as anything Bob Dylan or John Lennon had to say.