Top Artists – Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell / Easy – Reviewed in 2009

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This Minty looking Tamla LP has AMAZING SOUND on both sides. Some songs sound better than others here but the ones that do sound good, WOW, they are out of this world!

Drop the needle on California Soul on side one to hear some tubey magical and sweet sound.

The best sounding track on side two is How You Gonna Keep It.

Some of the tracks have that slightly pinched Motown vocal EQ but that’s a small price to pay for this kind of sound.

We rate both sides A++ (on the best sounding songs). 

AMG Review

Along with the hit, the best songs here are “This Poor Heart of Mine,” an uptempo number and good workout for the duo, and “Love Woke Me Up This Morning,” an endearing exercise in romanticism.

Marvin Gaye / Let’s Get It On – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

More of the Music of Marvin Gaye

AMAZING SOUND for one of the best soul albums of all time! This is the first Hot Stamper copy of Let’s Get It On to ever hit the site, and it is KILLER on side one, giving you better sound for the classic title track than you probably ever dreamed of! It’s not easy to find clean original copies, and even when you manage to track them down they often don’t sound all that hot. This side one takes the music to a whole new level — the vocals are smooth and sweet, the bottom end is punchy with real weight, and the vocals have the kind of presence that carries them out of the speakers and front and center into your listening room. Let’s get it on indeed!

If you’ve ever sat through a few copies of this album, I’m sure you know how plain the sound can be. We had a big stack of copies (it took us ages to pull so many together) and most of them left us cold. When I’m listening to music this important, I don’t want to miss a thing. I need the sound to fall into place and give me the kind of magic that the artist intended. This side one does EXACTLY that. We heard subtleties in the music that had completely escaped us before. It was a truly special experience to hear this music sound like this, and you’re a fan of this kind of stuff you will be BLOWN AWAY.

Side two is excellent as well, but not quite in a league with the first side. The sound is rich and full with good presence and energy. The transparency and clarity are both wonderful and the vocals sound great. The first side just performs a bit better in the extremes — punchier down low and silkier up top — but it won’t be easy to find a side two much better than this one. (more…)

Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On

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More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • A KILLER sounding copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from first note to last
  • One of the better sounding Marvin Gaye records we do shootouts for – this copy is big and rich, just the way we like ’em
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this groundbreaking album from 1973, you need a vintage pressing that sounds as good as this one does
  • 5 stars: “… no other record has ever achieved the kind of sheer erotic force of Let’s Get It On, and it remains the blueprint for all of the slow jams to follow decades later — much copied, but never imitated.”

It’s surprising how good some of the classic soul albums from the early ’70s can sound. Let’s Get It On is up there with Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions as albums that offer sound every bit as good as the music.

We had a big stack of copies (it took us ages to pull so many together) and many of them left us cold. When I’m listening to music this important, I don’t want to miss a thing. On the best copies, it was a truly special experience to hear Gaye’s music sound so good. (more…)

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On

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More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • A superb copy of an album that almost never hits the site, featuring seriously good sound throughout
  • More spacious and transparent than most other copies yet still super rich and smooth in the midrange; listen to the bells and percussion — there’s real ambience around them for once
  • Gaye’s vocals are full and present on these sides – they’re rich, full and Tubey Magical with plenty of energy and big bottom end
  • If you’re a fan of this great music, you need to snap this one up – most copies we’ve brought in were beat to death, full of groove damage or just sonically unimpressive
  • 5 stars: “What’s Going On is not only Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece, it’s the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music… arguably the best soul album of all time.”

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