What has always charmed and endeared me to music is its distinctive ability to exceed its domain. It’s a robust art that has the power and the scale to make a wide array of expression: passionate or piercing, political or philosophical, to name a few. One of the greatest soul singers and songwriters of our time, Marvin Gaye, embraced that power with verve. While it’s widely posited that What’s Going On is his greatest work, I lean toward Let’s Get It On, a seductive philosophical statement from Gaye on the complicated relationship of love and sex, as being Marvin Gaye’s magnum opus. That’s not to diminish the former—it’s an equally powerful piece of statement-art—but the latter makes a memorable testimonial on the complexity of the spiritual/physical pairing of human relationships that, at the time of its release, was unprecedented. We’ve all heard the title track. The distinct, funky and evocative “crying” of a yearning guitar has long been parodied in popular culture as a cue of
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