Marvin Gaye - Gold - Music & Performance - CD

Marvin Gaye left behind one of the greatest legacies in American pop music, a fascinating and irresistible string of chart hits and stunning album-long suites that explored the sacred/secular divide in his own soul, and by extension, the philosophical divide in the American psyche, and he did it all with grace, ease, assurance, and style. This double-disc anthology hits the obvious high points, but also is deep enough to include some rarities (like the wonderful What's Going On footnote song "Where Are We Going?"), live tracks (his famous live performance of "Distant Lover" from an Oakland concert is included), a generous selection of his classic duets with Tammi Terrell, and his late, last burst of brilliance, 1982's "Sexual Healing." There are countless Marvin Gaye compilations on the market, but Gold does as well a job as any of them at skating across the high points of his career. The thing to remember, though, is that the water is deep, and listeners owe it to themselves to eventually dive down past these kinds of "greatest hits" collections into the full sweep of this brilliant singer's body of work. [The track listing on Gold is identical to that on the 2001 Motown compilation The Very Best of Marvin Gaye.] ~ Steve Leggett, Rovi