The song Marvin Gaye believed Motown ruined: “Tampering with my art”
Even though Motown’s peak for singles was arguably in the 1960s, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the artists signed to the iconic Detroit label started to release more ambitious full-length albums, gaining recognition for complete bodies of work rather than standalone hits.
While Stevie Wonder is often considered to be one of the finest examples of this, with a catalogue of records such as Talking Book, Innvervisions and Songs in the Key of Life that changed the history of soul and made it ultimately more adventurous, it was arguably Marvin Gaye who created the blueprint for how fully-realised a soul LP could be with his 1971 classic, What’s Going On.
Gaye would only get more progressive in his sound from here onwards, leaning into funk and disco influences on his releases later in the ‘70s, but this was arguably not the direction that the label wanted to go in. Records like Let’s Get It On and I Want You were critically adored, and while the former produced hits, the latter took a more experimental approach that Motown weren’t comfortable with him taking.
Having been known as hit-makers, putting out albums of an eclectic nature that proved to be more challenging for the listener wasn’t their number one priority, and therefore, Gaye and the label became at odds with one another for how their ambitions were conflicting.
With Gaye wanting to take greater risks, he released a single in 1979 called ‘Ego Tripping Out’, a deep funk track that settles into a groove for seven whole minutes and barely leaves this theme. However, Gaye had written an entire album of material around it that he’d always wanted to see come to light, called Love Man, and unfortunately, Motown weren’t having any of it.
In an interview for Record World, Gaye explained that the song was part of a wider concept that never saw the light of day. “That was a single written about myself at a time when I was trying to get a handle on my ego, which was always at the forefront,” he revealed.
“I’m very self-centered and I feel like I’m it,” he added. “When one is that ill, one has to deal with their ego. They never really gave me a chance to complete it and when I did complete it, for some reason, they didn’t put it on the album. The album didn’t come out the way I had done it. It’s like taking a Leonardo da Vinci and submitting it to your agent and your agent has another artist paint a different smile or something on top of it. I view people tampering with my art in the same context.”
While he was ultimately disappointed with the fact that Motown had tampered with his art, the label did end up putting out In Our Lifetime two years later, which was released in an attempt to bring him back closer to the mainstream. However, while it was well-received by fans, it didn’t perform well commercially, and as a result, he asked to be released from his contract at the label, opting to release what would be his final album, 1982’s Midnight Love, via Columbia.
The more introspective Love Man, on the other hand, would never be fully completed and never saw the light of day.
