"Let's Get It On" is a classic Motown single, endlessly repeatable and always enjoyable. It begins with three great wah-wah notes that herald the arrival of a vintage Fifties melody. But while the song centers around classically simple chord changes, the arrangement centers around a slightly eccentric rhythm pattern that deepens the song's power while covering it with a contemporary veneer. Above all, it has Marvin Gaye's best singing at its center, fine background voices on the side, and a long, moody fade-out that challenges you not to play the cut again.

For the rest of the LP, Gaye uses his voice (in both lead and background) to create a dreamlike quality only slightly less surreal than he did on What's Going On, his very best record to date. But while on the earlier work he sang of the difference between his vision of God's will and man's life, he is currently preoccupied with matters purely secular -- love and sex.

And yet he continues to transmit that same degree of intensity, sending out near cosmic overtones while eloquently phrasing the sometimes simplistic lyrics. But then that should come as no surprise from the man who sang "She makes my day a little brighter/ My load a little lighter/ She's a wonderful one," in a way that made it difficult to remember whether he was singing about God or woman -- and whether he felt there was any difference.

The first side was co-written and co-produced by veteran rock hand Ed Townshend, and it flows with ease, the melodies sometimes underdeveloped, but Gaye's voice, hovering around the falsetto, holding our attention and providing unique transitions in mood and style that happily bring us back to a reprise of the title cut, "Keep Gettin' It On."

Gaye produced the second side, and it is more daring and self-conscious. "You Sure Love to Ball" has the chant-like quality of most of the album but is overdone. What first induces a hypnotic response soon generates simple boredom, as his endless repetitions take on an unpleasantly obsessive quality. Conversely, the slow "Just to Keep You Satisfied" is too blatantly sincere. I prefer the loose sensuality of "Come Get to This," an upbeat song with a dazzling arrangement, devoid of the simplistic elements of some of the material.

Let's Get It On is as personal as What's Going On but lacks that album's series of highpoints. Instead, it ebbs and flows, occasionally threatening to spend itself on an insufficiency of ideas, but always retrieved, just in time, by Gaye's performance. From first note to last, he keeps pushing and shoving, and if he sometimes takes one step back for every two ahead, he gets there just the same -- and with style and spirit to spare.

- Jon Landau, Rolling Stone, 12/6/73.

Bonus Reviews!

Gaye's persuasive manner allows him to interpret songs that speak of the heart of the ghetto. This LP is standard Gaye fare -- fine in terms of vocal attack and material. It touches on the excellent in terms of instrumental support through the inclusion of several guest names from the pop and jazz fields. Their collective unionism provides a bright dash of spirit to Gaye's own pleadings. These Los Angeles musicians include Welton Felder (of the Crusaders), David T. Walker, Emil Richards, Marv Jenkins, Joe Sample (of the Crusaders) and Victor Feldman. Best cuts: "Let's Get It On," "Distant Lover."

- Billboard, 1973.

Post-Al Green What's Going On, which means it's about fucking rather than the human condition, thank the wholly holey. Gaye is still basically a singles artist, and the title track, as much a masterpiece as "Inner City Blues," dominates in a way "I'm Still in Love with You," say, doesn't. Then again, it's an even better song, and this album prolongs its seductive groove to an appropriate thirty minutes plus. A-

- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.

On Let's Get It On, Marvin Gaye articulated love and lust in ways that presented sex as what it is for adults, a temporary escape from the world. Not until Prince's "1999" (the single, not the album) did someone articulate the dichotomy between social awareness and personal necesities more succinctly. Let's Get It On was a bit more conventional musically (soul crossing into mild funk) and much more focused lyrically than it's predecessor, What's Going On. The record is about loneliness, about ego, about all that goes into someone's mind when he or she is trying to make another person matter. Let's Get It On takes place in a bedroom, but it's about more than the act itself. As much as What's Going On, the album is about fitting into a perfect community. It's impossible to choose one album over the other.

- Jimmy Guterman, The Best Rock 'n' Roll Records of All Time, 1992.

Let's Get It On is one of the most erotic recordings known to mankind. Inspired by Gaye's obsession with a teenage girl, Janis Hunter, who would later become his second wife, Side one is a self-contained suite. Side two, including "You Sure Love to Ball," is nearly pornographic. Over time, five songs would chart from the album, including one of his concert standards, "Distant Lover." * * * * *

- Rob Bowman, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

Let's Get it On offers the visceral desire of a man in serious heat. * * * *

- Gary Graff, Musichound Rock: The Essential Album Guide, 1996.

"I mumble things into the microphone," Gaye said. "I don't even know what I'm saying, and I don't even try to figure it out. If I try, it doesn't work. If I relax, those mumbles will finally turn into words. It's a slow, evolving process, something like the way a flower grows." On this album, those words turn into meditations on the gap between sex and love and how to reconcile them -- an adult version of the Motown tunes Gaye had built his career on. Songs such as "Just to Keep You Satisfied" and "You Sure Love to Ball" are some of the most gorgeous music of Gaye's career, resplendent with sweet strings and his clear-throated, non-mumbled crooning.

Let's Get It On was chosen as the 165th greatest album of all time by the editors of Rolling Stone magazine in Dec. 2003.

- Rolling Stone, 12/11/03.

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