Izdavač: Ostalo
Žanr: Fank i Soul, Pop, Rege, Ska i Dab
Poreklo: Strani izvođač

Original, made in Austria

Knjizica od 12 str.

knjizica 4 Cd 4

Studio album by Marvin Gaye
Released November 8, 1982
Recorded October 1981 – August 1982
Studio Studio Katy, Ohain, Belgium
Devonshire Studios, Los Angeles, California
Kendun Recorders, Burbank, California
Arco Studios, Munich, Germany
Genre Soul, funk, reggae, R&B, boogie
Length 39:30
Label Columbia
Producer Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye chronology
In Our Lifetime
(1981) Midnight Love
(1982) Dream of a Lifetime
(1985)

Midnight Love is the seventeenth studio album by Marvin Gaye and the final album to be released during his lifetime. He signed with the label Columbia in March 1982 following his exit from Motown.

The disc was certified triple platinum in the United States. It was nominated for a 1984 Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, spawning the two-time Grammy Award-winning hit `Sexual Healing`. It was ranked number 37 on the Rolling Stone list of the best albums of the 1980s decade[1] and the NME named the album as its Album of the Year in 1982.[2]

Background
In January 1981, Gaye`s final Motown album, In Our Lifetime, was released on Motown`s Tamla label. Gaye was angry over its release and Motown`s edit of the album, comparing it to an unfinished Picasso painting and having others finish the painting for him.[3] Gaye vowed afterwards to never record for Motown again.[4][5] The following month, a Belgian concert promoter and a longtime fan of Gaye`s music, Freddy Cousaert, visited a visibly shaken and depressed Gaye, who was struggling with drug addiction, in London, following the end of a European tour. Concerned for Gaye`s health and state, Cousaert offered Gaye a place in his pension in Ostend. Gaye, who was traveling with his younger brother Frankie and then-girlfriend, Dutch model Eugenie Vis, agreed to go on the trip though he admitted to Frankie later that he didn`t know where Ostend was and that he `left that to the hands of God.`[6]

Gaye arrived at Ostend on February 14, 1981. That same month, Gaye`s second marriage to Janis Hunter ended in divorce two years after Hunter filed. Gaye cut down on his drug use while in Ostend and began exercising and attending the local church. Gaye recovered well enough to begin talks of a musical comeback. Disappointed in the results of his last two albums and in his relationship with Motown, as well as disappointing fans during his oft-chaotic concert tours, Gaye, with Cousaert`s help, began rehearsing a new band for the short Heavy Love Affair Tour, named after Gaye`s song from the In Our Lifetime album in Ostend. Some of the rehearsal footage aired on the Belgian TV documentary, Transit Ostend. The tour took place mainly in London, Bristol and Manchester, England, before Gaye performed the final two dates in Ostend. Gaye ended the tour after the Ostend performances and remained in Ostend, along with two of his touring musicians, Gordon Banks and Odell Brown.

Within the final months of 1981, with word of Gaye plotting a musical comeback and an exit from Motown, several labels offered record deals. Gaye eventually accepted CBS Records, which in turn gave him a three-album contract with Columbia. Details of how much the singer was paid when Gaye signed on March 23, 1982, was not made public due to possible interference with Gaye`s payment to creditors to receive back taxes, which had prompted Gaye to permanently settle in Europe. It was later determined that it took $1.5 million (US$4,548,621 in 2022 dollars[7]) to buy Gaye`s contract out of Motown, with an additional $600,000 advance money (US$1,819,448 in 2022 dollars[7]) awarded to the singer.[1] Gaye had begun recording on elements of his new album starting in December 1981 in Brussels before the deal was set. Figuring he had alienated record buyers and his legion of fans for writing interpersonal albums, Gaye sought to record more mainstream music to win them back. In explaining why he decided to go for the commercial sounds instead of looking inward as he had with his last album, In Our Lifetime, Gaye explained, `I`m worried that I`m getting so introspective, no one will listen. I can`t afford to miss this time. I need a hit.`[8] In regards to the album`s music, Gaye told a reporter:

“On one level, it’s a party record. It’s a record you can dance to and even freak to. But if you listen closely and go beneath your surface, you’ll hear my heart speaking. You’ll hear my heart saying, ‘It’s time to put the madness behind and let love lead the way.’ You’ll hear me testify that I still believe in Jesus, I still believe in God’s miraculous grace, I still believe that the Lord forgives even when — and especially when — we cannot forgive ourselves.” [9]

Recording
One of the first songs Gaye had worked on with musician Odell Brown was a reggae-influenced track that Gaye and Brown had recorded around October 1981. The then-Rolling Stone reviewer David Ritz had arrived to Belgium in April 1982 after he had been tipped off to where Gaye was. Despite Gaye`s pleas to not meet up with Ritz, Ritz eventually located Gaye in his Ostend apartment not too far from Cousaert`s pension where he and Gaye reluctantly continued their interviews that led to the book, Divided Soul.

According to Ritz, he had seen several S&M comic book type of books in Gaye`s bookshelf. Said to have been disgusted with this, Ritz told Gaye `you need some sexual healing`. Ritz then alleged Gaye told him to write a poem. However, this story was disputed by Gaye`s friends, family members and fellow musicians. When Cousaert was told of this story, he denied Ritz ever having anything to do with the song except for its title.[10] Musicians Odell Brown and Gordon Banks also flatly denied Ritz`s accounts, with Brown stating `I never met the guy. All I was told was that he was doing an interview for Rolling Stone.`[11] Banks stated that what really happened is Gaye had told Ritz that he was intrigued by Amsterdam`s Red Light District and Ritz had responded to it by stating Gaye needed sexual healing but `that was it. David didn`t have anything to do with that.`[12] Gaye`s Frankie also stated that all Ritz said was `not only are you sexy but your music is healing` after Gaye played the track to him.[13]

Gaye and Gordon Banks then worked on seven of the album`s other tracks. To help out, Columbia had sent Gaye and his musicians several instruments along with the Roland TR-808 drum machine and a Jupiter 8 synthesizer. Gaye and Banks mainly contributed to the production, with Harvey Fuqua adding to the production by adding horn sections.[12] In regards to the recording development of the album Gordon Banks stated:

It was basically him and I in the studio. Columbia Records gave him some new toys to play with. They gave him two drum machines, a synthesizer called a Roland TR-808 and a Jupiter 8. Marvin didn`t know too much about technology so it was my job to figure out how to get the stuff working. He kind of liked the sounds that came from it and he went from there. Marvin was a great pianist. After getting past the challenges with the Jupiter 8, it was like he had been playing it his whole life.[14]

The funk song, `Rockin` After Midnight`, actually came by from the mixing of two songs.[12] `My Love is Waiting`, the sole Gordon Banks composition, was recorded much like the demo.[12] Around April 1982, Gaye presented a rough demo of `Sexual Healing` to Columbia executive Larkin Arnold, who was as pleased with the song as Marvin had been.[15] The album took more than nine months to be completed, and was mixed and edited in several studios in Belgium, Germany and the United States, particularly in California.[16] Arnold explained that the production was costly and that Gaye`s months in production were sporadic at best.[1] According to Curtis Shaw, Gaye`s lawyer, the cost of recording the album was $1.5 million (US$4,548,621 in 2022 dollars[7]), though Arnold put it at `closer to $2 million` (US$6,064,828 in 2022 dollars[7

Original release
All tracks composed by Marvin Gaye, except where noted.

Side one
No. Title Music Length
1. `Midnight Lady` 5:17
2. `Sexual Healing` Odell Brown, Gaye, David Ritz 4:05
3. `Rockin` After Midnight` 6:04
4. "Til Tomorrow` 4:57
Side two
No. Title Music Length
1. `Turn On Some Music` 5:08
2. `Third World Girl` 4:36
3. `Joy` 4:22
4. `My Love Is Waiting` Gordon Banks 5:07
2000 CD reissue bonus track

Personnel
Marvin Gaye – vocals, Fender Rhodes piano, Roland Jupiter-8 synthesizer, organ, drums, TR-808 drum machine, drum programming, bells, glockenspiel, vibraphone, finger cymbals, bongos, congas, cabasas
Gordon Banks – guitar, bass, backing vocals, drums, Fender Rhodes piano
James Gadson – drums on `Midnight Lady`
Bobby Stern – tenor saxophone, harmonica
Joel Peskin – alto and tenor saxophone
Harvey Fuqua – backing vocals on `Sexual Healing`, editing, mixing, production advisor
David Stout and The L.A. Horn Section – horns
Curt Sletten – trumpet
Harry Kim – trumpet
Alan Kaplan – trombone
McKinley T. Jackson – horn arrangement
Technical

Larkin Arnold – executive producer
Mike Butcher – engineer, mixing
Brian Gardner, Alan Zentz – mastering
John Kovarek – engineer
Henri Van Durme – engineer