In Our Lifetime (Marvin Gaye album)
Marvin Gaye's final Motown album, a departure from disco.
In Our Lifetime is the fifteenth studio album by American soul singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye, released January 15, 1981, on Motown's Tamla Records. Entirely written, produced, arranged, and mixed by Gaye, it was his final album for Motown before leaving for Columbia Records. The album marked a departure from his previous disco stylings and is regarded as one of the best of his late Motown period.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- Marvin Gaye
- Released
- January 15, 1981
- Recorded
- 1979–1980
- Studio
- Marvin's Room (Los Angeles)
- Seawest Recording (Honolulu)
- Odyssey (London)
- Genre
- Soul
- funk
- jazz
- Length
- 41:30
- Label
- Tamla
Facts from the source article.
Conception
In 1979, Marvin Gaye was at a low point professionally and personally. He had not had a hit in two years since "Got to Give It Up," and his previous album, Here, My Dear, had been a commercial failure that alienated critics and fans by chronicling his divorce from Anna Gordy. After that divorce, Gaye married his longtime girlfriend Janis in October 1977; Janis later filed for legal separation citing mental abuse. That year, Gaye decided to reestablish his pop audience and released the autobiographical disco song "Ego Tripping Out," which he debuted on Dinah Shore's Dinah & Friends. The song was intended as the lead track for a disco-styled album titled Love Man, but the project was put on hold as Gaye faced a $4.5 million debt with the IRS. He embarked on a half-hearted world tour to alleviate his debts but abandoned it midway through after a mildly receptive show in Japan and performances in Hawaii, leading to lawsuits from musicians and promoters. Gaye then secluded himself in a bread van on a beach in Maui while struggling with cocaine addiction. He called his mother Alberta to ask her to give away earrings he had bought her in exchange for money for cocaine, and asked friends Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder for money, but neither complied. His lawyer advised him to file for voluntary bankruptcy, which led to the shutdown of his recording studio and further depressed him.
Recording
The first recording sessions for the album took place at Marvin Gaye Studios in Hollywood and at Seawest Recording Studios in Honolulu. After settling in London in 1980, Gaye recorded his new concept for the album at Odyssey Studios and George Martin's AIR Studios. Songs recorded in Los Angeles and Hawaii were changed from their original approach. The original version of "Love Party" was titled "Dance 'N Be Happy" and focused on his fallout with Janis Gaye, but was rewritten as a pseudo dance song with gospel-influenced lyrics. The blues song "Just Because You're So Pretty" became "Love Me Now or Love Me Later," focusing on the concept of good and evil souls. The funk song "I Offer You Nothing But Love" was transformed into "In Our Lifetime," which included chants and lyrics about a possible Armageddon. The mild disco sound of "Lover's Plea" was altered for more gospel influences in "Praise," which praised Stevie Wonder for the inspired riff. "Life is For Learning" changed little except for its original title, focusing on how Gaye approached his music. "Funk Me" was altered from a more sexually charged version from Love Man, and "Heavy Love Affair," his one song discussing his fallout with Janis, was originally "Life's a Game of Give and Take." "Far Cry" was the only newer song from the London sessions featured on the album, along with the instrumental "Nuclear Juice." Gaye revived and reworked "Ego Tripping Out" twice as a possible entry before omitting it from the final tracklist.
Release
Marvin Gaye was furious when In Our Lifetime hit stores on January 15, 1981, because he felt it was rushed out. He said the label added guitar licks and bass lines without his okay, specifically on "Heavy Love Affair," and compared it to someone finishing a Picasso painting against the artist's will. He called the experience humiliating and heartbroken, and said Motown went behind his back, something he would never forgive or forget. The album sold poorly even though critics liked it; the only R&B hit was "Praise," and it reached number 32 on the Billboard Top 200 but climbed to number six on the R&B chart. Afterward, Gaye asked to leave his contract. That happened in 1982 when CBS Records' urban division president Larkin Arnold bought out his Motown deal, ending a 22-year relationship. Gaye then recorded his final album released in his lifetime, Midnight Love, in Belgium and Germany. In 1994, Motown put the album on CD for the tenth anniversary of Gaye's death, adding "Ego Tripping Out" to the track list. On June 19, 2007, Hip-O Records issued an expanded edition with alternate takes from London's Air and Odyssey Studio sessions, the original 1979 single of "Ego Tripping Out," and an alternate cut from the In Our Lifetime sessions. From its release until 2007, the album had been wrongly titled In Our Lifetime without the question mark Motown intended; the 2007 reissue corrected that. The second disc of that reissue pulled material from the Love Man sessions, with instrumental tracks that later appeared on Lifetime under different lyrics and titles. Only 5,000 copies of the corrected reissue were made.
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