专辑简介：
I purchased this SACD a while back but was disappointed by the paucity of “formative” Marvin Gaye music. I thought the songs included made for a chintzy, watered down, list. I was particularly disappointed that some of the great Marvin Gaye songs that made only the soul charts and not the Bill Board Top 40 were not included. Songs that were released when he was only appreciated and known as a soul singer in the Black community were uniformly left off the list. Two legendary songs, in particular, "Hitch Hike" and "Pride and Joy" featured Martha and the Vandella's (before they were known) kickin' plenty ass in the background. To this day my siblings amusingly, but with all due respect, reminiscence the lyrics “Hitch Hike, Hitch Hike Chilin” (the vernacular for “children”). And what about “Stubborn Kind of Fella” when Marvin Gaye would dance on the table tops at Ester’s Orbit Room on 7th Street in Oakland (at least that's what my cousin use to tell me). Likewise, "Wonderful One", "Can I Get a Witness" and others were inexplicably left off in a release that is proclaimed as “The Marvin Gaye Collection”, instead of what it really is “Marvin Gaye’s Best Sellers”. "Can I Get a Witness?"
Make no mistake the songs included are very good as far as they go, but that the song list lacks the foundation, and maybe even the essence of the “complete” Marvin Gaye as an artist. Plus, I believe that the tracks with Kim Weston and Tammi Terrell (what about Mary Wells?) while good and popular belong on a separate disc, not here. In addition, the two channel tracks sounded shrill.
So why, after a thorough lambasting, have I completely changed my tune (pun intended) on this Marvin Gaye “collection”, even though my criticisms are still valid (to yours truly) with respect to content? Ironically, the first influence goes to my two youngest sons, both who are certified card carrying hip hop, boom box, ipod, devotees that in recent months have, for whatever reasons, with exuberance adopted Marvin Gaye (and Stevie Wonder) big time. I have been inundated with Gaye blasting from upstairs. But the most compelling reason for my turnaround is the multi-channel layer.
I invited my son, Alexander, to listen to some Marvin Gaye on a “real” system and I pulled out "The Marvin Gaye Collection" because it includes two of his favorites “Let’s Get It On” and “What’s Going On”. We listened primarily in multi-channel. This turned out to be an astonishing revelation for both of us. Marvin Gaye’s voice is definitively projected into the room as I have never heard. I would never say that it was as though Marvin Gaye was in the room with us. I mean how trite can one be? But because Alexander (my son) said exactly that I have included his observation in these comments. But to be sure, the depiction is graphic. And for those of us (including me) that sometimes question the import of a high quality (and full range) center channel this disc goes a long way toward converting doubting Thomas’.
It is the surround channels, though, that make this disc. Most, if not all, of these selections were released prior to the “quad era” so the multi-channel is almost certainly simulated. But clearly Marvin Gaye (and many other artists of the day), especially with “What’s Going On” and later releases, was reaching well beyond "two-channels", but was severely restricted by the limitations of two-channel technology. This was most evident in the live venue when, with the use of re-verb, and the “speakers every where” approach, that artists like Earth, Wind, and Fire, Issac Hayes, and Marvin Gaye attempted to smash through the two channel barrier. It is incontrovertible (to me) that Marvin Gaye with his use of multi-tracks in his later works was attempting to go beyond two-channel. These works plead for multi-channel technology.
And almost uniformly the mixes are a complete success. Even the most early release (1964) of this collection, “Ain’t That Peculiar” (that most closely represents the “classic” Marvin Gaye in this collection) really draws you into the Motown sound, musicianship, and instrumentation, unlike I’ve ever heard. And the mixes, while sure to be controversial to some, are tastefully done. There is a little “cheese” factor with the opening tambourine in “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”. But it’s all good.
What about the two-channel mix? I think somebody just screwed up here. I have never heard such a large disparity in the “sound quality” between a two-channel and multi-channel mix on the same SACD. There is nothing wrong with the “mix” of the two-channel presentation. It’s what I grew up on. But sound quality on this disc (vinyl or well mastered CDs that I have heard with similar material sound much better) is thin and over modulated. When directly comparing the multi-channel with the two-channel the latter is louder by about 6 db and turning it down doesn’t really help the quality.
Clearly the multi-channel simply trumps the two-channel version in terms of sound, but also in presentation and enjoyment. It is a pronounced improvement over a well mastered original.
Now if we can have a “complete”, unabridged, Marvin Gaye anthology akin to the SACD “Sam Cooke, Portrait of a Legend” I would be in Gaye heaven.
And while we’re at let’s have some Stevie Wonder (including “Little” Stevie Wonder) 曲目列表：
1. Ain’t That Peculiar
2. It Takes Two (with Kim Weston)
3. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (with Tammi Terrell)
4. Your Precious Love (with Tammi Terrell)
5. Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing (with Tammi Terrell)
6. I Heard It Through The Grapevine
7. What’s Going On
8. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
9. Trouble Man
10. Let’s Get It On
11. Distant Lover 试听：
/1 
发表于 2020-3-4 17:52:16
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