Marvin Gaye

Dream of a Lifetime is Columbia's first plunge into the barrel of unreleased Marvin Gaye
material. Although inconsistent, it is not without merit. Two of the songs come from the last
recording session before Gaye's death; a third was recorded in the late Seventies; the five
others, made earlier in the singer's career and "entrusted to his mother for safekeeping,"
are musically superior. The three later songs are primarily notable for their sexu... More >

Like a lot of rock and roll geniuses, Gaye was also a nut (or jerk, if you prefer). One reason he worked so assiduously in the studio was that he was loath to let us see all the way inside him, which means that these posthumously consummated outtakes and private jokes are by his own best standard too unmediated to carry much aesthetic weight. By my own best standards, too. On "Ain't It Funny (How Things Turn Around)," the only track that bears Gaye's rhythmic and harmonic signature rather than Gordon Banks's or Harvey Fuqua's schlock-it-to-'em, and "Savage in the Sack," a joke he knew enough to find funny, his wit and charm shine through. Elsewhere he's just letting off guilt in heavenly visions or sexual fantasies out of control. Maybe bondage freaks will find "Masochistic Beauty" a turn-on--what do I know? I know what I infer from "Sanctified Lady" (formerly "Sanctified Pussy")--that this man found himself despising women for doing the kinky things he forced them to do. And there's no way that's a turn-on. (Grade: C+)