Soul Strut 100: #92 - Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear
RAJ
tenacious local 7,783 Posts
I will slowly be unveiling the Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records as Voted by the Strutters Themselves.
#92 - Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear
Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.
Related Threads:
Here, My Dear Finally Gets The Deluxe Treatment
Underappreciated Marvin Gaye LPs
Marvin Gaye appreciation
Awesome Revenge Tracks RR
#92 - Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear
Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.
Related Threads:
Here, My Dear Finally Gets The Deluxe Treatment
Underappreciated Marvin Gaye LPs
Marvin Gaye appreciation
Awesome Revenge Tracks RR
Comments
thanks for the links to former threads
classic album and one that i understood more because of batmon and other's analysis
a grower that never ceases to amaze me
What is the deal with the two covers?
Here, My Dear vs. Here My Dear
I don't know for certain since I can't remember back that far but I have a deep seated feeling that Here, My Dear was an album that the Strut really got me to listen to. I was aware of it before this forum and knew enough of it to feel I had a grasp but I believe it was post one of the mentions on here bitd that really got me to sit down and spend time with it and recognise just how incredible it is.
The whole thing is fantastic from start to end and covers so much ground musically that to me its easy to forget what a lot of the content is about and get swept away on the production and harmonies. When you do stop and listen to the content for a minute it's like a slap in the face. One thing that has always struck me is that I hear a real contradiction between the amount of attention to arrangements and the complexity of many of the songs and what feels like rough edges in the final editing. Keeps a rawness to the songs that might otherwise get lost.
An album that really feels timeless to me I have also been known to listen to Time To Get It Together on loop for extended periods.
It goes to show how SStrut is one giant privatemindgarden lol ??? this record is strangely off people???s radar, but if I extricate my point of reference from the Board, maybe it???s not so strange after all? Big big music fans have asked me what I???m playing when I put this record on ??? at home and out ??? and I am surprised.
I can still remember being in a record store when I heard it for the first time. The guy at the counter put on Is That Enough???
Oh.
My.
Goodness.
The opening to that song still gives me chills.
It is easily the Gaye record I listen to the most.
Ha, yeah this is what I was trying to get at. I was wondering if it's seen as too predictable by people on this board - a relatively easy to come by album by a household name- totally overlooking how little love or listening time it gets from the general population. I know a fair few big music fans who know of the album and could tell you a few tracks on there but don't actually really know the album itself.
B/w
Yes.
http://open.spotify.com/user/1121775350/playlist/54CR4Ce88uFkr6shaMHxVX
it must be one of the most self-indulgent, yet brilliant albums i can imagine. i think it's fair to say that it is on this record that he took the overdubbing of his own voice to a new and since unmatched level.
while i like every song, "anna's song" is my shit.
I'm all about Sparrow
uhh, that is not the story at all really...i'll leave it to someone else to lay that all out...
That's not really how it happened, but you can find it out with a little more reading.
It's definitely been described as this - but I have never found it so.
That goes without saying here.
Im not tipsy yet.
And Berry didnt make Marvin write this for Gwen. Gwen complained to Berry about the project.
She was livid.
I would not want my shit put out on the street like that either!
"She had more records than meeeeeeeeeee.........."
Lets Get It On should pop up later.
No question. Kind of surprised this wasn't in the Strut's top 10 at least.
Dark and melodic.
I never know the songs off this album, always play thru and flip em.
Picked it up because of the talk about it on SS.
Love the album.
Isn't there a three six mafia sample on this somewhere?
Here My Dear vs 'Here My Dear.' or some shit like that.
Ill prep this shit by saying i have about 4 covers of Just To Keep You Satisfied.
Kenny Lattimore smooths the shit out.
Lisa Stansfield flips it on the woman tip.
Howard Hewitt kills it while directing it towards his ex-wife Nia Peeples.
Randy Crawford absolutely owns the shit.
That song is pre-cursor to Here My Dear and is the redhead cousin on the Lets Get It On album.
Its its a wierd cap off for an album that is pretty much a testiment to his newfound lust for Jan his 17 year old lover.
R. Kelly type shit decades before muthafuckas got their panties in a bunch.
Ill run thru some shit ive already dropped here at SS.
Back in the day of running thru records for just obvious braeks and luups, my boy had this shit and we both didnt grab on to anything to flip.
Much later I borrowed it along w/ a pile of other shit to check what he wasnt listening to. "Let me check this shit out." How can a Marvin do a double album with all this wierd ass symbolism on a gatefold cover, at not have no joints? Fuck the packaging in itself is incredible.
After really sitting down with it I became a fan, but it wasnt until I read Divided Soul that the album really made sense.
Ritz cheerleads this shit hard. We all gave What's Goin' On its propers and Lets Get It On is some Black Manhood lesson type shit, but Here My Dear is Marvin bukkit naked w/ a mirror full of line-out white girl. Gaye stretched the game w/ his political opus and sexual opus, yet to me he fused both of that shit by discussing his personal politics. I cant recall another album by another artist that turns their dirty drawers inside out to let you see the skid marks. 2-Pac is one dude who brought that sensiblity to Hip Hop. Exposing your shit.
A couple of years ago i was rappin w/ an older Brotha about music. He 'axed' me what the "best' Gaye album, trying to see if knew my shit.
I answered Here My Dear and he was convinced that I "knew my shit". The whole "only heads" rep this album is very much a part of its mystique. Like some password type shit. I really think it only really picked up steam in the millenium. Cats were not rockin this shit out.
No one fuckin sampled the shit BITD, and i wonder if it to this day has been flipped.
After it got Deluxed I wonder if that came too late while the (non-rekkid collectro)MP3 generation didnt get to take a hit off this shit.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's when Motown started to re-release their classics(I think that was around the time the Motwon Cafe opened up) Here My Dear was not in the CD racks. Divided Soul was writtin in '85 and he stated how shit was criminally out of print, and by the re-issue of the book in '91 it still wasnt on CD. The first edition is '94 w/ pretty good packaging, until that Deluxed joint w/ Ritz's essay.
The common critique is that its a revenge/divorce record but its kinda like a flip of Lets Get It On. LGIO ??? Jan Love w/ %3 Gwen "hatt".
Here My Dear starts out w/ Gaye praising his new young thang right to his Old-ass Ex-Wifes face on the fuckin intro track! (IM WAY OFF ON THAT. its about Gwen.) % Jan Love and u Gwen hatt. Falliing In Love Again is breath of fresh air w/ out the sexual tension of Lets Get It On.
On the extra Geek Level, this album could be a college course. On the real. Dude stretched the game three times IMO. And Here My Dear is is the culmination of his past gains. Dude had a Post Up game and a Three Pointer. Dude put that shit together to become a serious Inside -Out Threat.
Sippin On Some Syrup