The idea of a lost Marvin Gaye album recorded between What's Going On and Let's Get It On is almost impossibly seductive. Those records represent two different peaks in his career—one socially conscious and orchestrally ambitious, the other sensual and deeply rhythmic—and You're the Man offers material recorded in the space between them.
The reality is more complicated than the mythology. The 2019 collection gathers Gaye's solo, non-soundtrack recordings from 1972, including the material intended for the unreleased You're the Man project. Inevitably, it feels more like an archival reconstruction than a completed album whose sequence Marvin Gaye personally approved.
That lack of unity is audible. Production styles change, arrangements come from different sessions and the record never develops the inevitability of What's Going On. Expecting another lost masterpiece therefore places an unfair burden on music that was left unfinished or unreleased for several different reasons.
Once that expectation is removed, there is a great deal to admire. The title track has the political urgency and rhythmic momentum of Gaye's early-seventies work, with funk supplying the propulsion beneath a vocal that remains effortlessly commanding. "Try It, You'll Like It" is driven by bright horns and an impassioned performance, while "Piece of Clay" slows everything down around piano and a wonderfully understated guitar line.
The appeal is partly historical, but the performances rarely require historical generosity. This is Marvin Gaye in 1972, at a point when his voice, phrasing and instincts were extraordinarily assured. Even incomplete ideas can contain details that lesser singers and producers might have built entire records around.
The collection also helps illuminate the transition between two famous chapters of his career. Social commentary remains present, while rhythm, intimacy and a warmer sensuality increasingly enter the arrangements. The bridge between What's Going On and Let's Get It On was evidently less a clean stylistic turn than an accumulation of possibilities.
You're the Man is therefore more valuable as a window into a creative period than as the missing masterpiece its history might suggest. It is uneven because archives are uneven. What it preserves is Marvin Gaye working through ideas during one of the richest periods any American soul artist ever experienced, and even the fragments carry his unmistakable presence.
GENRE: Soul
RELEASE DATE: March 29, 2019
PRODUCED BY: Marvin Gaye, Hal Davis, Gloria Jones, Pamela Sawyer, Freddie Perren, Fonce Mizell & Willie Hutch
LABEL: Motown / UMe
RATING: 6/10