Anthony Bourdain’s favourite Motown album
Every great trip requires its own soundtrack, and the globe-trotting travels of everybody’s favourite punk chef, Anthony Bourdain, came complete with an expectedly subversive soundtrack. As was always the case with Bourdain, though, the chef had a few surprises up his sleeve when it came to his musical taste.
Anybody who ever listened to Bourdain speak for more than a few minutes could probably garner a decent understanding of where his musical allegiances lie. Particularly when you take into account his early days in mid–1970s New York City, soaking in the emerging abrasion of punk rock in the midst of concrete-jungle depravity and whirlwinds of rubbish, Bourdain’s expansive list of favourite artists begins to make sense. From The Stooges to Rosa Yemen, Bourdain’s music taste reflected his wider personality, enmeshed in the underground.
At the same time, though, Bourdain liked to remain unpredictable. His outlook on life couldn’t have been further away from the brightly-coloured pop-centric optimism of Motown Records, for instance, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the chef was immune from the allure of Berry Gordy’s musical empire. After all, even the most ardent of punk purists would have to admit to the sheer brilliance of Motown’s extensive output back in the 1960s, from the early sounds of Little Stevie Wonder right through to the political commentary of Marvin Gaye.
For Bourdain, his love of soul and R&B music went hand-in-hand with his adoration of cooking. The Stooges are great, sure, but you can hardly concentrate on cooking a cacio e pepe if you’ve got Iggy Pop screaming in your ear. No, the lush, soulful sounds of artists like Isaac Hayes were what got Bourdain in the zone when it came to his culinary craft. “I like to hear music while I cook, but nothing too headbangy any more,” he told The Guardian in 2017. “Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, pre-disco funk, Isaac Hayes and Brothers Johnson and I’m happy.”
Even when looking for background cooking music, though, it would appear that Bourdain’s endless desire for substance persisted. So, rather than looking to hit sounds of The Supremes for his soul fix, the New Yorker instead sought out Motown’s most visionary, socially-conscious hero, Marvin Gaye, and his 1971 masterpiece What’s Going On.
Back in 2021, when Morgan Neville was working on Roadrunner, about Bourdain’s life, the filmmaker took a special interest in the music tastes of the enigmatic chef, compiling an extensive list of his all-time favourite songs. Throughout the entirety of that list, the only appearances made by Hitsville USA came in the form of songs from What’s Going On, and it doesn’t take a documentarian to guess the reasons why.
With that 1971 album, Gaye offered a profound, ambitious, and ultimately brave collection of songs holding a mirror up to the injustice and reality of life in the United States during the early 1970s. It wasn’t, like many other Motown releases, catered towards the pop charts, and it didn’t seem to care who it offended or alienated in the process – including Berry Gordy himself, who hated the album until it became a best-seller.
For a man who was always keen to highlight injustice and the forgotten corners of society, What’s Going On clearly resonated with Bourdain’s sensibilities. Whether he was using it as simple background music while making sandwiches, or sitting down intently hanging onto every word out of Gaye’s mouth, the counterculture hero is firmly among the album’s legions of devotees, and quite rightly, too.
