The data doesn’tlie: What was the most critically acclaimed song of the 1970s?
If the counterculture movement of the 1960s began in earnest with New York City’s beat revolution, then nothing marked the end of it quite like the decay of the Big Apple either. The hippie uprising was a revolution filled with hope and idealism—such tenets were always going to struggle to sustain the mire of the murky 1970s. In a flash, the artists of the day went from ‘Imagine’ to ‘Only A Fool Would Say That’. This was a very understandable reaction to the times.
At the dawn of the decade, New York was in worse shape than a waterlogged football. Between 1969 and 1974, half a million manufacturing jobs had been lost. A million homes depended on welfare. Rapes and burglaries tripled. Drugs dug their claws into the sagging psyche of the sleepless city. The murder rate hit a startling high of nearly 33 slayings every week. Things looked bleak, and the Big Apple seemed rotten to its core. So, one simple question presented itself: What’s going on?
Marvin Gaye didn’t ask that with his classic track; he answered it. ‘What’s Going On’ is a song devoid of a question mark. It is a statement that reconciles the whys and wherefores of a society gone awry, drifting towards a chilly winter of despair following the summer of love. The 1971 anthem might be smooth and sweet, but there’s a solemnity and sobriety to the song, too.
A few years earlier, hit songs had a headier disposition. ‘Good Vibrations’ might have offered up a hint of eeriness thanks to the mystic ways of a theremin, but the track, by and large, became one of the most celebrated of the 1960s because it was visceral and present. ‘God Only Knows’, ‘Be My Baby’ and ‘She Loves You’ are also social, sunny songs, you picture them and you think of upbeat boulevards and broadside surf; you think of ‘What’s Going On’ and you picture Gaye pulling you to one side at a party—it’s more personal and introspective.
Was it a big commercial hit?
Up until the 1970s, Motown and its subsidiaries had always stayed clear of politics. Berry Gordy had a mantra that could be surmised as thus: pop is pop, politics is politics, and never the twain shall meet. But that left the likes of Gaye feeling adrift when they witnessed the society’s slide seemed readily apparent, and plenty of other artists were rightfully supporting the civil rights movement and engaging in activism.
Push came to shove when Renaldo Benson, the bass singer from The Four Tops and Gaye’s songwriting buddy, witnessed a gruesome incident of police brutality in broad daylight. So, he brought the workings of an inspired song over to Gaye and Motown’s magical Al Cleveland, and they got to work on a song that had designs to change the world in a far less flamboyant way from the psychedelic haze of the 1960s.
What song beat ‘What’s Going On’ to number one?
The track seemed to instantly strike a chord with the nation, providing an answer to the very question that many were asking. Alas, it was challenging, and Gordy’s old mantra still holds true even today when it comes to the height of commercialism. So, despite selling over two million copies, ‘What’s Going On’ peaked at number two in the charts, beaten to the top spot by Three Dog Night’s rather more upbeat ‘Joy To The World’, ironically a track that almost forms the mirror image to Gaye’s masterpiece.
However, if the critics are to be believed, then Gaye’s second-placed Tamla track might not have beaten Three Dog Night in the sales charts, but it is considered the greatest song of the decade. According to thousands of pieces of data compiled by the analysis Henrik Franzon, ‘What’s Going On’ comes out on top as the most revered song of the entire 1970s. It beats Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’ in second and ‘Anarchy in the UK’ by the Sex Pistols in third.
It’s easy to see why it stands in such a position. Rarely has such a sweet anthem proved so important and poignant. It’s a masterpiece that proves that bliss doesn’t have to be ignorant, and it is performed with such soul and perfection that it exemplifies how the downtrodden can still skip towards meaningful transcendence.
