Trouble Man ((Soundtrack from the Motion Picture) [Reissue])

iTunes Review

Trouble Man is Marvin Gaye’s one true blues album. Understandably, the album is usually overshadowed by the monumental LPs that surrounded it: 1971’s What’s Going On and 1973’s Let’s Get It On. While those works are driven by lyrical declarations, Trouble Man is almost entirely instrumental; its power comes from the absence of words. Mark Anthony Neal wrote that “the narrative silence” of Trouble Man “evokes the ghastly silences that accompanied the smoldering ashes of riot-torn Detroit.” It’s a premise that changes the way these songs are heard. The music becomes elegiac rather than incidental. The title song is one of Gaye’s greatest pieces — an incantatory lament that hovers in the air like a mist over a broken city. The playing is as seductive as it is despondent. The absence of hooks and catchy choruses makes Trouble Man one of Gaye’s more challenging efforts, but acute listeners will be rewarded with his most personal statements. It’s one of only two records written solely by Gaye, and along with I Want You, the singer deemed it favorite among all his albums.