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That we never got to see where he could have gone is one of pop culture’s greatest tragedies. You can imagine a trajectory that involves him working with Nile Rodgers or Quincy Jones, or finding a way to embrace even more synthetic sounds and electro-pop beats in ways that felt vibrant and original instead of cloying. Through it all, that magisterial tenor of his only got deeper and more heartfelt more sensual and gritty. Then in the early ’70s, he started writing his own material, deeply personal songs that explored social ills, the ups and downs of his personal life, and yes, plenty of songs about getting it on, all to the tune of sly funk and disco.īy the time of his death, he was showing signs of moving in the direction of quiet-storm soul and world music inspired pop with his final album, Midnight Love.
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When the mood turned psychedelic, so did Gaye, putting his own spin on Dion and Beatles tunes. Gaye is one of the few Motown artists who came up through the ranks of that label’s star-making system and continued to evolve with the times up until his untimely death one day shy of his 45th birthday.Īfter some dabblings in doo-wop early on, Gaye positioned himself as a crooner of pop standards like “My Funny Valentine” and “How High The Moon,” before quickly embracing the new sound of R&B and soul. It feels easy to predict that fate because there’s precedent.
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While the other two artists mentioned above make it harder to make any absolute claims about their imagined futures, I think it’s a little easier to imagine that Gaye would have found a way to thrive even while his peers were pushed into commercial redundancy or started making music that felt beneath their abilities. Would Kurt Cobain have released more albums as zeitgeist-defining and powerful as Nevermind or In Utero? Would Biggie Smalls have achieved the same elder statesman status as Jay Z or RZA? Would Marvin Gaye have maintained his status as one of the preeminent voices in soul music even amid the rising tide of hip-hop and harder edged R&B? It can be hard to not engage in a mental game of “What if?” when it comes to artists who died well before their time.