| Super Hits | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Greatest hits album by | ||||
| Released | September 1970 [1] | |||
| Recorded | 1962–69 | |||
| Length | 44:44 | |||
| Label | Tamla | |||
| Producer | William "Mickey" Stevenson, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Frank Wilson, Norman Whitfield, Smokey Robinson | |||
| Marvin Gaye chronology | ||||
| ||||
Super Hits is a compilation album by American soul singer, songwriter, and producer Marvin Gaye. It was released in 1970 by Motown's subsidiary Tamla Records and compiles Gaye's pop-R&B singles recorded from 1962 to 1969. [2]
The album's cover art is a cartoon illustration created by artist Carl Owens. It depicts Gaye as a muscle-bound superhero flying high in the sky and catching a cracked antenna from the WHIT radio station. A voluptuous, scantily-clad black woman is also shown clutching at his neck and waist for safety. Author and Gaye biographer David Ritz calls the cover "the perfect artistic expression of Marvin's mystique at that point of his career – Gaye as an established sex symbol". [3]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [4] |
| The New Rolling Stone Record Guide |  [5] |
Music critic Robert Christgau views Super Hits as the best album released by Motown [6] and includes it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). [7] AllMusic's Ron Wynn regards it as "a fabulous anthology, one of the best ones Motown ever released". [4]
A similarly titled compilation album was released in 2001 by Legacy Records and Sony Music, [8] which The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) warns is "not the wonderful 1970 Motown collection, now deleted, but a budget set of Midnight Love material". [9]
Side one
Side two
Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of successes, earning him the nicknames "Prince of Motown" and "Prince of Soul".
Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of motor and town, has become a nickname for Detroit, where the label was originally headquartered.
What's Going On is the eleventh studio album by American soul singer, songwriter, and producer Marvin Gaye. It was released on May 21, 1971, by the Motown Records subsidiary label Tamla. Recorded between 1970 and 1971 in sessions at Hitsville U.S.A., Golden World, and United Sound Studios in Detroit, and at The Sound Factory in West Hollywood, California, it was Gaye's first album to credit him as a producer and to credit Motown's in-house studio band, the session musicians known as the Funk Brothers.
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown Records in 1966. The first recording of the song to be released was produced by Whitfield for Gladys Knight & the Pips and released as a single in September 1967. It went to number one on the Billboard R&B Singles chart and number two on the Billboard Pop Singles chart and shortly became the biggest selling Motown single to date.
Let's Get It On is the thirteenth studio album by American soul singer, songwriter, and producer Marvin Gaye. It was released on August 28, 1973, by the Motown subsidiary label Tamla Records on LP.
"Ain't Too Proud to Beg" is a 1966 song and hit single by The Temptations for Motown Records' Gordy label, produced by Norman Whitfield and written by Whitfield and Edward Holland Jr. The song peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Pop Chart, and was a number-one hit on the Billboard R&B charts for eight non-consecutive weeks. The song's success, in the wake of the relative underperformance of the previous Temptations single, "Get Ready", resulted in Norman Whitfield replacing Smokey Robinson, producer of "Get Ready", as The Temptations' main producer. In 2004 it finished #94 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs poll thanks to its inclusion in The Big Chill soundtrack.
I Want You is the fourteenth studio album by American soul singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye. It was released on March 16, 1976, by the Motown Records-subsidiary label Tamla.
Midnight Love is the seventeenth and final studio album by Marvin Gaye. He signed with the label Columbia in March 1982 following his exit from Motown. It was the final album to be released before his death.
That Stubborn Kinda Fellow is the second studio album by Marvin Gaye, released on the Tamla label in 1963. The second LP Gaye released on the label, it also produced his first batch of successful singles for the label and established Gaye as one of the label's first hit-making acts in its early years.
All Directions is a 1972 album by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label, produced by Norman Whitfield. It reached number two on the Billboard 200, making it the band's most successful non-collaborative album on the chart, and became their twelfth album to reach number one on the Top R&B Albums chart.
Gettin' Ready is the fourth studio album by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label released in 1966. It marks the transition of the group from having Smokey Robinson as its main producer, with new producer Norman Whitfield taking over Robinson's position. Two #1 R&B hit singles, one from each producer, are included: "Get Ready" from Robinson with Eddie Kendricks on lead, and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" from Whitfield with David Ruffin on lead. Also included is the original version of "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby", which would be rerecorded as a hit for Marvin Gaye in 1969. The album was also one of the last albums to contain tracks co-authored by members of the group until the release of The Temptations Do The Temptations (1976). As with previous Temptations albums, several songs are written by members of The Miracles: Smokey Robinson, Bobby Rogers, Pete Moore, Ronnie White, and Marv Tarplin.
In the Groove is the eighth studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released on August 26, 1968 on the Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. It was the first solo studio album Gaye released in two years, in which during that interim, the singer had emerged as a successful duet partner with female R&B singers such as Kim Weston and Tammi Terrell. In the Groove was reissued and retitled as I Heard It Through the Grapevine after the unexpected success of Gaye's recording of the same name, which had been released as a single from the original album.
How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You is the fifth studio album released by American singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye, released in 1965. The album features the successful title track, which at the time was his best-selling single and was famously covered by James Taylor in 1975. Other hits include "Try It Baby" and "Baby Don't You Do It" . Inspired by Jackie Gleason’s trademark expression.
Marvin Gaye at the Copa is a live album recorded at the exclusive New York club, the Copacabana, where singer Marvin Gaye performed in August 1966, over a year following The Supremes' ballyhooed 1965 performance there. Marvin was only one of just a few R&B musicians after Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson to perform at the club where performers such as Sammy Davis, Jr., Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra had performed at regularly. Marvin was the second act from Berry Gordy's fabled Motown label following the Supremes to perform at the nightclub and would be followed by The Temptations in 1968 and Martha (Reeves) and the Vandellas that same year. According to the liner notes later on, Marvin's performance there was a success, however, an ongoing feud between Gaye and his brother-in-law, Motown recording boss Gordy, was said to have been one of the reasons why the album was eventually shelved with the duo fighting over how the album was to be produced. The album had been scheduled for release in January 1967 as Tamla 273 before its permanent shelving. In 2005, Hip-O Select Records, a Motown-associated label created to re-release or release unreleased material from Motown's vaults re-mastered sessions from this album and released it that year.
Greatest Hits is a 1964 greatest hits album, the first for American R&B-soul singer Marvin Gaye, released on the Tamla label. Released during Gaye's first period of success, it was also his first charted album as a solo artist after making his album chart debut with the Mary Wells duet album, Together, the same year.
Marvin Gaye's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 is a compilation album of greatest hits, a second compilation by American R&B/soul singer Marvin Gaye, released on the Tamla label in 1967. This album focused on the singer's best hits from 1964 to 1966 including signature hits "How Sweet It Is " and "Ain't That Peculiar".
Playboy is the third album by the Motown girl group The Marvelettes, released in 1962. It capitalized on their hit singles "Playboy" and "Beechwood 4-5789". It also includes the single "Someday, Someway" and "Forever", a heartfelt standard that would be released the following year as the B-side of the single "Locking Up My Heart" and join the A-side on the charts. Other compositions include "Goddess of Love", "Cry Over You", and "Mix It Up". George Gordy, William "Mickey" Stevenson and Marvin Gaye, who had produced "Beechwood 4-5789" all did some work on the Playboy LP as well.
Love Starved Heart: Rare and Unreleased is a compilation album by Marvin Gaye. Released in 1994 on Motown Records, the collection features some rarities from the soul singer's catalog during his formative years in the label between his breakthrough year as an R&B star in 1963 to around the time of his late-1960s hits including "I Heard It through the Grapevine". Covering material he worked on with figures such as Holland-Dozier-Holland, Smokey Robinson and William "Mickey" Stevenson, the disc showcases Gaye's growth as a vocalist. In 1999, an expanded version was released under the title Lost and Found: Love Starved Heart, including bonus tracks and a rare interview.
Motown: The Musical is a jukebox musical that premiered on Broadway in April 2013. The musical is based on Berry Gordy's autobiography To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown (1994), and on the history of his founding and running of the Motown record label, and his personal and professional relationships with Motown artists such as Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, and Michael Jackson. The production's music and lyrics are taken from selections from the Motown catalog. It received four nominations at the 67th Tony Awards.
What's Going On Live is a live album recorded in 1972 by American soul singer Marvin Gaye and released posthumously in 2019 by Motown. The album documents a live performance of his masterpiece What's Going On and has received mixed feedback from critics.
