Denzel Washington names his favourite album of all time: “I just loved it”
Denzel Washington is one of Hollywood’s greatest actors. Having gotten his start in the late 1980s with films like Cry Freedom and Glory, he burst onto the screen with a level of charisma and acting precision that made him seem like an industry veteran from the very beginning. He’s continued to show his range as a performer over the decades, embodying everyone from Malcolm X to corrupt cops to an actual angel from heaven. In the process, he’s earned no fewer than nine Oscar nominations, two of which led to wins.
Like many stars of his calibre, Washington rarely fawns over other performers or speaks about people in the industry with glowing superlatives. In interviews, he can be downright facetious, either answering with one or two words like Robert De Niro at his most taciturn or mercilessly hazing the interviewer.
In a 2012 conversation with Grantland, he was asked whether there was any music or a particular record that had changed his life. His response was characteristically brusque but unequivocal. “Oh, wow. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. I just loved it,” he said. When asked how it changed his life, he clarified, “I mean, it didn’t change my life, but I just remember it, when it came out, and Marvin had that cool Nehru jacket on, and it was raining, and he had that [collar] thing up.”
The cover art might have been the thing that stuck in Washington’s mind, but the music almost certainly did, too. It is one of the most groundbreaking albums of all time and remains a touchstone for many artists. Marvin Gaye was one of Motown’s biggest stars when What’s Going On was released in 1971, having already recorded such all-time hits as ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)’ and ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’. But with What’s Going On, his eleventh studio album, he was asserting his independence from the record label and addressing the political moment.
Eschewing the celebratory ‘Motown sound’ for a more mournful tone of his own layered vocals and lyrical complexity, Gaye ensured that the album was an unmistakable break from tradition. He was inspired to make it after witnessing the political turmoil in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement and protests against the Vietnam War were met with brutal violence by law enforcement, and Gaye would later explain that he just couldn’t bring himself to continue singing love songs in such a harrowing period. He had to use his art to explore “what’s going on”.
He was also inspired by the letters his brother sent home from fighting in Vietnam and was still working through his grief over the tragic death of fellow Motown artist and frequent collaborator Tammi Terrell.
Despite being such a profound deviation from his previous work, What’s Going On became an immediate success and a soundtrack for the generation. Decades later, it remains one of the most acclaimed albums of all time and is frequently cited as the greatest album ever recorded.
