Super Hits (Marvin Gaye album)

Super Hits
Greatest hits album by
Marvin Gaye
ReleasedSeptember 1970[1]
Recorded1962–69
Length44:44
LabelTamla
ProducerWilliam "Mickey" Stevenson, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Frank Wilson, Norman Whitfield, Smokey Robinson
Marvin Gaye chronology
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's Greatest Hits
(1970) 		Super Hits
(1970) 		What's Going On
(1971)

Super Hits is a compilation album by the American soul singer, songwriter, and producer Marvin Gaye. It was released in 1970 by Motown's subsidiary Tamla Records and compiles Gaye's pop-R&B singles recorded from 1962 to 1969.[2]

Cover art

The album's cover art is a cartoon illustration created by artist Carl Owens. It depicts Gaye as a muscle-bound superhero flying high in the sky and catching a cracked antenna from the WHIT radio station. A voluptuous, scantily-clad black woman is also shown clutching at his neck and waist for safety. Author and Gaye biographer David Ritz calls the cover "the perfect artistic expression of Marvin's mystique at that point of his career – Gaye as an established sex symbol".[3]

Critical reception

Retrospective professional reviews
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[4]
The New Rolling Stone Record Guide[5]

Music critic Robert Christgau views Super Hits as the best album released by Motown[6] and includes it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).[7] AllMusic's Ron Wynn regards it as "a fabulous anthology, one of the best ones Motown ever released".[4]

A similarly titled compilation album was released in 2001 by Legacy Records and Sony Music,[8] which The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) warns is "not the wonderful 1970 Motown collection, now deleted, but a budget set of Midnight Love material".[9]

Track listing

Side one

  1. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong) – 3:10
  2. "Pride and Joy" (Whitfield, Marvin Gaye, Mickey Stevenson) – 2:09
  3. "The End of Our Road" (Roger Penzabene, Whitfield, Strong) – 2:49
  4. "Ain't That Peculiar" (Smokey Robinson, Marv Tarplin, Bobby Rogers, Pete Moore) – 2:57
  5. "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" (Gaye, George Gordy, Mickey Stevenson) – 2:47
  6. "Can I Get a Witness" (Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland) – 2:46
  7. "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" (Holland, Dozier, Holland) – 2:59
  8. "That's the Way Love Is" (Whitfield, Strong) – 3:15

Side two

  1. "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" (Whitfield, Janie Bradford, Strong) – 2:54
  2. "Chained" (Frank Wilson) – 2:37
  3. "You're a Wonderful One" (Holland, Dozier, Holland) – 2:44
  4. "Try It Baby" (Berry Gordy) – 2:57
  5. "I'll Be Doggone" (Robinson, Moore, Tarplin) – 2:47
  6. "Hitch Hike" (Gaye, Clarence Paul, Stevenson) – 2:27
  7. "You" (Jack Goga, Ivy Jo Hunter, Jeffrey Bowen) – 2:46
  8. "Baby Don't You Do It" (Holland, Dozier, Holland) – 2:40

References

  1. ^ Ben Edmonds (2002). What's Going On?: Marvin Gaye and the Last Days of the Motown Sound. Canongate U.S. p. 280. ISBN 1841953148. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  2. ^ Marcus, Greil, ed. (2007) [1979]. Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island (2nd ed.). Da Capo Press. p. 271. ISBN 978-0306815324.
  3. ^ Ritz, David (2009) [1985]. "14: Games". Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye. Hachette Books. ISBN 9780786730469.
  4. ^ a b Wynn, Ron. "Super Hits [Motown] – Marvin Gaye". Allmusic. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  5. ^ Dave Marsh, John Swenson (1983). The New Rolling Stone Record Guide. Random House, Rolling Stone Press. p. 193. ISBN 0394721071.
  6. ^ "Rock Critic's Choice: Top Ten". Robert Christgau. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  7. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "A Basic Record Library: The Fifties and Sixties". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 0899190251. Retrieved March 16, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  8. ^ "Super Hits – Marvin Gaye". Allmusic. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  9. ^ Edmonds, Ben (2004). "Marvin Gaye". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon & Schuster. p. 326. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.