{"id":18719,"date":"2020-05-14T05:30:38","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T09:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=18719"},"modified":"2025-12-11T17:03:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T22:03:03","slug":"album-review-marvin-gaye-more-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/14\/album-review-marvin-gaye-more-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Marvin Gaye — More Trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I\u2019ve read critical essays that characterize Marvin Gaye\u2019s Trouble Man<\/i> as part of a triptych of albums, one of three soundtrack albums for \u201870s \u201cblaxpliotation\u201d films. Yet against the backdrop of Isaac Hayes\u2019 Sh<\/i>a<\/i>ft<\/i> and Curtis Mayfield\u2019s Super Fly<\/i>, Gaye\u2019s 1972 album is little known and less remembered. Part of the reason for that may be that while Shaft<\/i> and Super Fly<\/i> were both box office smashes, Trouble Man<\/em> (the film) fared poorly both critically and commercially. And unlike the singles from those soundtrack LPs for those movies, Gaye\u2019s \u201cMain Theme from Trouble Man<\/i>\u201d \u2013 though a hit \u2013 somehow didn\u2019t pass into sustained pop culture.<\/p>\n

But coming as it did on the heels of What\u2019s Going On<\/i>, Marvin Gaye\u2019s soundtrack album did indeed sell well, faring nearly as well as Gaye\u2019s acknowledge opus. The album represented one of few opportunities he would have as an artist to exercise a great measure of creative control upon his work. Critics \u2013 including Andrew Flory, author of I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B<\/i> \u2013 have remarked upon Trouble Man<\/i> as a tantalizing hint of what Gaye might have been able to do had that latitude been at his disposal for other subsequent projects.<\/p>\n

Listing to Trouble Man<\/i>, it\u2019s notable just how sparingly Gaye uses well-worn tropes of the era \u2013 wah-wah guitars, congas, bongo drums and the like \u2013 in his arrangements. Those elements are in evidence, to be sure, but he employs them as part of a much wider and more textured palette of sonic elements. Orchestration and layered vocal work play a far more prominent role in the Trouble Man<\/i>\u2019s suite of thirteen (mostly instrumental) songs.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, an album of outtakes from the Trouble Man<\/i> sessions would be worthwhile, if only as a means of providing a window into Marvin Gaye\u2019s creative process. Happily, when the album received an expanded 2CD reissue in 2012, a passel of previously-unheard material was featured as the first (not second!) disc.<\/p>\n

Now, eight years later \u2013 and 48 years after the original album\u2019s release \u2013 those \u201cbonus\u201d tracks have re-appeared as a standalone album of their own \u2013 on vinyl, no less \u2013 titled More Trouble<\/i>. And the tracks on this new release do indeed allow listeners a glimpse into Gaye\u2019s process of constructing the soundtrack.<\/p>\n

Considered purely on its own merits, More Trouble<\/i> would be a minor entry in Gaye\u2019s catalog. But of course it was never intended for release in such a manner, so to consider it by that measure is unfair and less than useful. Think of it instead as a companion to the original Trouble Man<\/i>, and its qualities are more reasonably appreciated.<\/p>\n

As it happens, Flory not only co-produced the new More Trouble<\/i> release, he wrote its enlightening liner note essay. That essay places the material into its historical context, and specifically into the timeline of Gaye\u2019s work. He significantly notes that while Gaye has \u201ca full orchestra and the run of the recording facilities,\u201d he nonetheless \u201cnever really had the chance to finish [Trouble Man<\/i>] the way he wanted.\u201d That may well have been the case, but listening to both the band and orchestral-focused tracks, the quality of the More Trouble<\/i> outtakes do underscore just how successful he was.<\/p>\n

More Trouble<\/i> comes packaged in an attractive gatefold sleeve, and while the album doesn\u2019t include the kind of detailed session notes for which deep-dive listeners might wish, that information is widely available elsewhere. More Trouble<\/i> is highly recommended, with the caveat that you\u2019d do yourself a disservice to not also have a copy of the original Trouble Man<\/i> as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve read critical essays that characterize Marvin Gaye\u2019s Trouble Man as part of a triptych of albums, one of three soundtrack albums for \u201870s \u201cblaxpliotation\u201d films. Yet against the backdrop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,64,65,69,70,73],"tags":[4189],"class_list":["post-18719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-reissue","category-review","category-soul","category-soundtrack","category-vinyl","tag-marvin-gaye","cat-49-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","cat-70-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18719"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30544,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18719\/revisions\/30544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}