HERE MY DEAR - Hip-O-Select

[JSngry]

http://www.hip-oselect.com/scr.public.prod...68-2DC48EC4E84F

[JSngry]

Works for me.

[Claude]

Marvin Gaye (for the search function)

[JSngry]

Yes I have.

[jazzbo]

Thanks for the reminder. I preordered this set from Hip-O and then when it came I spun it a few times but it came at a BAD TIME. . . so I'll have to revisit this.

[JSngry]

Received yesterday (but minus the "richly textured 28-page booklet, packed with full lyrics, an essay by Gaye biographer David Ritz, and two sidebar essays detailing the creation of the controversial cover art and the making of this edition. In true Hip-oSelect.com style, also included are comprehensive recording and musician annotations for the first time", and we're working on that one right now...), and all I can say is yes.

YES!!!

The original album is still there, and the the new mixes/versions/whatever (the company goes to great pains to not call them "remixes", presumably because there's "no overdubbing", but hell, I call remix, and proudly!) are quite often stunning, bringing out as they do A) features of the original tracks that were less than obvious in the original mixes; B) alternate vocal/instrumental performances; and/or C) reusing the original tracks in a wholly visionary manner.

For the latter, I'm thinking particularly of the "alternate version" of "Falling In Love Again", which begins life pretty straight-ahaed, but then all of a sudden the drums drop out and all these Rhodes swirls start coming up and over, and little by little all sense of "here" is removed and you're transported to an ethereal yet still real "some other place". The effect is not unlike having the song running through your head, suddenly being shot, and having the song continue to play in your head as your life in this plane slowly but inexorably wanes away and you transition into....someplace else.

Given that this is Marvin, it's hard for me not to feel it like that, although the "intent" of the "alternate mixer" Salaam Remi (and why the fear of the term "remix" anyway?) is not known (or if it is, is in the "richly textured 28-page booklet, packed with full lyrics, an essay by Gaye biographer David Ritz, and two sidebar essays detailing the creation of the controversial cover art and the making of this edition. In true Hip-oSelect.com style, also included are comprehensive recording and musician annotations for the first time" which I did not receive, GRRRR...) but that's how it hits me.

No secret that if ever there was such a thing as a "flawed masterpiece", it was Here, My Dear. This expanded edition doesn't remove any of the flaws, but it does accentuate/highlight/drive home the masterpiece, even w/o the "richly textured 28-page booklet, packed with full lyrics, an essay by Gaye biographer David Ritz, and two sidebar essays detailing the creation of the controversial cover art and the making of this edition. In true Hip-oSelect.com style, also included are comprehensive recording and musician annotations for the first time" which I BETTER get a response on.

Marvin Gaye was and is one of "those" artists for me. If he was/is for you, and if the "gap" between "Got To Give It Up" & "Sexual Healing" is one that exists for other people, not you, then I think you'll want this.

Just be ready to shoot off some e-mail about a potentially missing "richly textured 28-page booklet, packed with full lyrics, an essay by Gaye biographer David Ritz, and two sidebar essays detailing the creation of the controversial cover art and the making of this edition. In true Hip-oSelect.com style, also included are comprehensive recording and musician annotations for the first time".

[JSngry]

And for my money, "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You" is the ne plus ultra chronicle of love - deep, spritiual love - gone irrevocably wrong.

[jazzbo]

And for my money, "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You" is the ne plus ultra chronicle of love - deep, spritiual love - gone irrevocably wrong.

I agree. When I hear that I can't get it out of my head for days. It grafts on synapses.

[Rosco]

And for my money, "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You" is the ne plus ultra chronicle of love - deep, spritiual love - gone irrevocably wrong.

[JSngry]

Another thing I like about the remixes (I'll go ahead and call them that) is that both the vocal & instrumental tracks are (mostly) presented dry (i.e. - without reverb). This hikes up the detail significantly and, imo, most effectively.

Marvin was not a particularly deep "musical" thinker. I mean, gorgeous tunes & great changes, but all "of a piece" if you know what I mean. But my god, what a singer, what a voice in the service of some emotional & spiritual matters that are deep. A project like this, which uses the materials of the original work to highlight different facets of that depth is every bit as exciting & satisfying (to me) as is one like Motown's previous Expanded Editions of the What's Going On and beyond material, where that depth is explored through the bulk of previously unheard material.

It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, they do with In Our Lifetime, another Flawed Masterpiece that pretty much flopped in the marketplace of the time (which probably has everythingto do with why Motown proper has given it a glancing blow of pseudo-recognition in the CD era...) yet has developed a cult status since, a status that I feel i s more than justified.

[John L]

Thanks for that review, JS. I will have to order this. I had been holding off because I wasn't entirely thrilled with the expanded editions of What's Going On and Let's Get it On. Part of the reason is that virtually all of the best bonus material had been released before, in particular on the 4-disc box set that came out a while back.

[JSngry]

Thanks for that review, JS. I will have to order this. I had been holding off because I wasn't entirely thrilled with the expanded editions of What's Going On and Let's Get it On. Part of the reason is that virtually all of the best bonus material had been released before, in particular on the 4-disc box set that came out a while back.

Not all that thrilled w/the former, but very much so w/the latter, if only to be able to trace-in-reverse the evolution of "To Keep You Satisfied".

Were those cuts in that 4-disc box?

[jazzbo]

Thanks for the reminder. I preordered this set from Hip-O and then when it came I spun it a few times but it came at a BAD TIME. . . so I'll have to revisit this.

Sorry Jim, ever since October 8 my mind has not quite been right I think. . . It was "In Our Lifetime" that I preordered and received and shelved after a cursory listen; I wasn't aware this one was out, so I've ordered it this morning. Thanks for the headsup.

You'll dig the other. . . of course.

[JSngry]

I hadn't even heard about the In Our Lifetime deal...wow...great marketing these guys got.

Just ordered it, though, with <200 left. So anybody interested had better carpe diem, I'd think.

And thanks for the headsup yer own self!

[Harold_Z]

Screw all of you lazy bastards!!

[JSngry]

Screw all of you lazy bastards!!

Hey, it wasn't me who started that old crazy Asian war.

[John L]

Thanks for that review, JS. I will have to order this. I had been holding off because I wasn't entirely thrilled with the expanded editions of What's Going On and Let's Get it On. Part of the reason is that virtually all of the best bonus material had been released before, in particular on the 4-disc box set that came out a while back.

Not all that thrilled w/the former, but very much so w/the latter, if only to be able to trace-in-reverse the evolution of "To Keep You Satisfied".

Were those cuts in that 4-disc box?

No. That set passed over "Here, My Dear" completely.

[CJ Shearn]

I'm definitely intrigued by these expanded Marvin Gaye discs Growing up I only had "What's Going On" and "Live at the London Palladium" on LP

Edited December 13, 2007 by CJ Shearn

[JSngry]

Both Here, My Dear & In Our Lifetime are major works, I think, (numerous) flaws and all.

Stevie rightly gets a lot of play as The Motown Artist Who Created His Own World Of Sound And Other Realities, but hey, Marvin was maybe even further there with these two albums. They're not as "widely known" because those records totally tanked commercially, and only partially because of their flaws, which are more of degree than they are of anything "basic".

Here, My Dear rambles in the middle, and In Our Lifetime was released "unfininshed" (and was likely to never have been finished, a la the original Smile), but damn, what music got made anyway!

[John L]

Both Here, My Dear & In Our Lifetime are major works, I think, (numerous) flaws and all.

Stevie rightly gets a lot of play as The Motown Artist Who Created His Own World Of Sound And Other Realities, but hey, Marvin was maybe even further there with these two albums. They're not as "widely known" because those records totally tanked commercially, and only partially because of their flaws, which are more of degree than they are of anything "basic".

Here, My Dear rambles in the middle, and In Our Lifetime was released "unfininshed" (and was likely to never have been finished, a la the original Smile), but damn, what music got made anyway!

I agree completely.

Another incredible Marvin Gaye collection that is often overlooked is "Romantically Yours." Some of the tracks were subsequently issued with Gaye's additional overdubs that, for the most part, made them even more powerful (on the 4-disc Box Set, and then "Vulnerable."). But many of the other songs on Romantically Yours are no less incredible: "Just Like," "Walking in the Rain," "Happy Go Lucky," "I Live For You," ... Classic and timeless!