What we know is that Marvin Gaye was one of the most famous musicians alive. That he had made music that changed how people heard the world. That he had survived things that would have destroyed most people—addiction, bankruptcy, grief, paranoia, exile, the slow disintegration of everything he had built.
And that he ended up, in the last months of his life, in a small house in a working-class neighborhood of Los Angeles, fighting with his elderly father about insurance documents, unable to get far enough away to save himself.
—
PART TWENTY-SIX: THE LEGACY—CHAPEL HILL TO CAPITOL HILL
The reassessment of Marvin Gaye’s life and work has been continuous and has moved in only one direction.
In the year of his death, critics who admired him had to acknowledge that he had also been a complicated, difficult, sometimes destructive person—a man whose private life was marked by abuse, addiction, and genuine cruelty toward people he claimed to love. This was true. It has always been part of the picture.
But the work has continued to speak for itself.
In 2004, Marvin Gaye was ranked No. 6 on *Rolling Stone*’s list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time—ahead of everyone except Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, and John Lennon. In more recent rankings, his position has been even stronger.
*What’s Going On* regularly appears at or near the top of all-time album rankings across multiple critical surveys. It has been called the greatest album ever made by publications and critics who disagree on almost everything else.