Here, My Dear (1978)

As a concept album, Here, My Dear has few peers. It's the product in part of Marvin Gaye's final divorce settlement from his first wife of some 13 years, Anna Gordy, who agreed to accept the advance and a portion of the earnings from his "next album." Gaye turned it into a double-LP meditation that roams all over the landscape of love lost, with as much bitterness and venom (that starts in the title) as sadness and grief. It's in his lush post-What's Going On style, full of aimless and dense mixes that find numerous ways to strike home at multiple levels. The tracks are pretty long, the majority clocking in at five or six minutes or more, and they tend to mush together across the relatively broad scope, though jarring points, such as "attorney's fees" or crazy saxophone solos are capable of emerging from the welter at any moment. I suspect a much sharper and more affecting work could have come from an effort to cut this approximately in half, but obviously other motivations had to be in play as well. Maybe he intended the bigger package as a gesture of generosity. Or, conversely, maybe he didn't want it to be that successful—at that point in his career a double-LP wasn't necessarily what his fan base was looking for. Even more likely, once he started on the thematics of this I can well imagine that it could have just started pouring out of him, leaving him with very little facility or perspective to cut and focus it. The best song here, "When Did You Stop Loving Me When Did I Stop Loving You" (which needs little further explanation beyond that title) gets three incarnations, one less than a minute as an outgoing coda but both of the other two over six minutes. All, even the shorty, are fairly well larded through with self-pity, but it's not hard to sympathize where he's coming from for anyone who's been through it, and this is one key point where he opens a memorable window to the pain. Addressing divorce is a dirty thankless job but someone's got to do it—or make that, do it well, cf., the recent picture Blue Valentine, because it isn't often done well. Here, My Dear doesn't necessarily do it well, certainly not consistently across its massive breadth. But factored in as it is so concretely to the divorce itself makes it uniquely interesting. And it is, after all, Marvin Gaye working in his most self-consciously chosen signature style. It may be one only for the fans—but it's fair enough to call it essential for those fans.