Blog Posts by Jim Irvin (2001)

Smokey Robinson called it the greatest album ever made; certainly What's Going On is the single greatest achievement by one's most singular talents. Jim Irvin reappraised Gaye's masterpiece in MOJO--Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

Some years ago I interviewed Paul Buchanan of the Blue Nile. A musician known for his restless lifestyle, I asked him if there was anywhere he'd like to settle. Stumped at first, towards the end of the interview he thought of somewhere he'd always fancied inhabiting. "I wanted to live in the first sixteen bars of Marvin Gaye's 'Inner City Blues'," he said.

This makes perfect sense. It's a piece of music that appears in front of your ears like a sonic hologram depicting a city in suspended animation - congas here, piano over there, the bass snaking by in the foreground, the strings sailing by in back. And there, in the centre, stand Marvin and his shadow, swaying in the music's current like a couple of spirits, singing - in that wistful