Midnight Love (1982) is the sixteenth studio album by American soul singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye and the final album to be released during his lifetime, released on November 8, 1982. He signed with the label Columbia in March 1982 following his exit from Motown.
The disc was certified triple platinum in the United States. It was an immediate international success selling over six million records worldwide. It was nominated for a 1984 Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, spawning the two-time Grammy Award-winning hit "Sexual Healing". It was ranked number 37 on the Rolling Stone list of the best albums of the 1980s decade and the NME named the album as its Album of the Year in 1982.
Background
In January 1981, Gaye's final Motown album, In Our Lifetime, was released on Motown's Tamla label. Gaye was angry over its release and Motown's edit of the album, comparing it to an unfinished Picasso painting and having others finish the painting for him. Gaye vowed afterwards never to record for Motown again. The following month, a Belgian concert promoter and a longtime fan of Gaye's music, Freddy Cousaert, visited a visibly shaken and depressed Gaye, who was struggling with drug addiction, in London, following the end of a European tour. Concerned for Gaye's health and state, Cousaert offered Gaye a place in his pension in Ostend. Gaye, who was traveling with his younger brother Frankie and then-girlfriend, Dutch model Eugenie Vis, agreed to go on the trip, though he later admitted to Frankie that he did not know where Ostend was and that he "left that to the hands of God."
Gaye arrived at Ostend on February 14, 1981. Gaye cut down on his drug use while in Ostend and began exercising and attending the local church. He recovered well enough to begin talks of a musical comeback. Disappointed in the results of his last two albums and in his relationship with Motown, as well as disappointing fans during his oft-chaotic concert tours, Gaye, with Cousaert's help, began rehearsing a new band for the short Heavy Love Affair Tour, named after Gaye's song from the In Our Lifetime album in Ostend. Some of the rehearsal footage aired on the Belgian TV documentary Transit Ostend. The tour took place mainly in London, Bristol and Manchester, England, before Gaye performed the final two dates in Ostend. Gaye ended the tour after the Ostend performances and remained in Ostend, along with two of his touring musicians, Gordon Banks and Odell Brown.
Within the final months of 1981, with word of Gaye plotting a musical comeback and an exit from Motown, several labels offered record deals. Gaye eventually accepted CBS Records, which in turn gave him a three-album contract with Columbia. Details of how much Gaye was paid when he signed on March 23, 1982, were not made public due to possible interference with his payment to creditors, which had prompted him to settle in Europe permanently. It was later determined that it took $1.5 million (US$ in dollars) to buy Gaye's contract out of Motown, with an additional $600,000 advance money (US$ in dollars) awarded to the singer.
Recording
thumb|left|A [[Roland TR-808 similar to the one Gaye used throughout the recording of Midnight Love.]]
One of the first songs Gaye had worked on with musician Odell Brown was a reggae-influenced track that Gaye and Brown had recorded around October 1981. The then-Rolling Stone reviewer David Ritz had arrived to Belgium in April 1982 after he had been tipped off about where Gaye was. Despite Gaye's pleas to not meet up with him, Ritz eventually located Gaye in his Ostend apartment not too far from Cousaert's pension, where he and Gaye reluctantly continued their interviews that led to the 1985 book Divided Soul.
According to Ritz, he had seen several S&M comicbook-type publications on Gaye's bookshelf. Said to have been disgusted with this, Ritz told Gaye "you need some sexual healing". Ritz then alleged Gaye told him to write a poem.
When Cousaert was told of this story, he denied Ritz ever having anything to do with the song except for its title. Musicians Odell Brown and Gordon Banks also flatly denied Ritz's accounts, with Brown stating: "I never met the guy. All I was told was that he was doing an interview for Rolling Stone."
Banks stated that what really happened is that Gaye had told Ritz he was intrigued by Amsterdam's Red Light District and Ritz had responded to it by stating Gaye needed sexual healing but "that was it. David didn't have anything to do with that." Gaye's brother Frankie also stated that all Ritz said was "not only are you sexy but your music is healing" after Gaye played the track to him. A reluctant Ritz later sued Gaye for royalties in 1983; by 1988, Gaye's estate had settled the matter out of court and Ritz earned a third of royalties.
Gaye and Gordon Banks then worked on seven of the album's other tracks. To help out, Columbia had sent Gaye and his musicians several instruments along with the Roland TR-808 drum machine and a Jupiter 8 synthesizer. Gaye and Banks mainly contributed to the production, with Harvey Fuqua adding to the production by adding horn sections.
The funk song "Rockin' After Midnight" actually came about by the mixing of two songs. Arnold explained that the production was costly and that Gaye's months in production were sporadic at best. Another controversial outtake is a song titled "Masochistic Beauty". Originally incomplete during the times of the album's release and Gaye's death, both songs were later completed by Gordon Banks and released on the posthumous Dream of a Lifetime compilation.
Critical reception
In his review of Midnight Love, Rolling Stone reviewer Dave Marsh called the album in terms of it being viewed as a comeback as "remarkably arrogant", stating "it simply picks up from 1973's Let's Get It On as if only ten minutes had elapsed since Gaye hit his commercial peak", though he did state the album was a successful comeback. After its rank on the magazine's list of best eighties albums, the album was described as "an inspired, mature work from one of the greatest soul singers, and is certainly one of the best solo albums of the eighties." In its Picks and Pans Reviews, People cited "too long gone, the Soulful One shows he can still sizzle". At the 1984 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for a Best Male R&B Vocal Performance Grammy, losing out to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". "Sexual Healing" won two Grammys the previous year, the only two Gaye won in his lifetime.
Midnight Love was voted the eighth best album of 1982 in The Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. A similar placement was ranked on the Netherlands' Oorlijsten. The UK's NME listed it at number-one on its list. Since then, much like Gaye's previous albums, it has been listed on best-of lists, ranking at number 37 on the United States and Australia Rolling Stone list of top eighties albums. The UK magazine Melody Maker listed it as one of the significant albums to be released between 1982 and 1985. Gary Mulholland listed it as one of the "261 Greatest Albums Since Punk and Disco" in 2006.
Commercial performance
Midnight Love was released to record retail stores on November 8, 1982, in the US In the wake of its success, "Sexual Healing" became one of Gaye's most covered songs as well as being sampled by several artists in the hip-hop and R&B genres. The demo version of "Turn On Some Music" was sampled for Erick Sermon's hit, "Music", giving full credit to Gaye as a leading vocalist, giving Gaye a posthumous top-40 hit in 2001, 17 years after his death. In 1998, Sony Music re-released the album as a two-CD "Legacy" edition set titled Midnight Love and the Sexual Healing Sessions. The same edition would be re-released in 2007, to celebrate the album's 25th anniversary since its release.
Track listing
Original release
All tracks composed by Marvin Gaye, except where noted.
The Sexual Healing Sessions
- Like the 2000 CD reissue of the album, the 2002 Super Audio CD (SACD) reissue includes an instrumental version of "Rockin' After Midnight" as a bonus track. However, the latter release notes that the version present on the 2000 reissue, referred to as the "Instrumental Stereo Mix", is distinct from the version on the 2002 reissue, which was newly mixed in 5.1 surround sound for said release by engineer and producer Jimmy Douglass.
Personnel
- Marvin Gaye – vocals, Fender Rhodes piano, Roland Jupiter-8 synthesizer, organ, drums, TR-808 drum machine, Synclavier II, Yamaha CS-80, drum programming, bells, glockenspiel, vibraphone, finger cymbals, bongos, congas, cabasas
- Gordon Banks – guitar, bass, backing vocals, drums, Fender Rhodes piano
- James Gadson – drums on "Midnight Lady"
- Andy Richards - Synclavier programming
- Bobby Stern – tenor saxophone, harmonica
- Joel Peskin – alto and tenor saxophone
- Harvey Fuqua – backing vocals on "Sexual Healing", editing, mixing, production advisor
- David Stout and The L.A. Horn Section – horns
- Curt Sletten – trumpet
- Harry Kim – trumpet
- Alan Kaplan – trombone
- McKinley T. Jackson – horn arrangement
Technical
- Larkin Arnold – executive producer
- Mike Butcher – engineer, mixing
- Brian Gardner, Alan Zentz – mastering
- John Kovarek – engineer
- Henri Van Durme – engineer
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Weekly chart performance for Midnight Love
! scope="col"| Chart (1982)
! scope="col"| Peak<br /> position
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
| 23
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ 1983 year-end chart performance for Midnight Love
! scope="col"| Chart (1983)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row" | German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)
| 70
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| 45
|-
! scope="row"| US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)
| 2
|}