Although it spawned three hits, this was Motown’s first true album. Its blend of spirituality and social realism, as well as relentless percussion set against lush orchestration, was unlike anything that came before it in both form and content. For Gaye, it was a self-produced declaration of in... 

 After a detour to score the film Trouble Man, he followed his masterpiece with the almost equally magnificent Let's Get It On in 1973. From the title-track opener to the closing "Just to Keep You Satisfied," it is unashamedly sexual. 

 Live is from a 1974 concert that was his first in two years, and it shows, though the sparks that fly on "Distant Lover" are eternal.  

 I Want You boasts the seductive title song and "After the Dance" but is otherwise slight, a disappointment after the twin peaks of What's Going On and Let's Get It On. 

 Live at the London Palladium catches a better show and contains the 12 studio minutes of "Got to Give It Up," proof positive that disco and genuine soul could coexist in a single slab of wax. 

 Here, My Dear (1978) was not a successful album saleswise, but it may be his most fascinating. Forced to give up the royalties to his ex-wife in their divorce settlement, Gaye's album brutally chronicles the breakdown of the marriage. 

 After a European exile and a divorce from Motown, he reappeared in 1982 with Midnight Love on Columbia. Its slinky single "Sexual Healing" intertwines his two major themes–sex and salvation. 

 Every Great Motown Hit of Marvin Gaye ain't all that, but its 17 songs make it an acceptable sampler. 

 In the same vein as the Ritz collection–imagine an update of Jackie Gleason’s Fifties albums of makeout music–is Romantically Yours, which was compiled by Marvin’s mentor and sometime producer Harvey Fuqua. 

 18 Greatest Hits ain't all that, but its songs make it an acceptable sampler. 

 The 1995 four-CD set The Master is excellent, as well as being a marked improvement over a botched box attempt earlier in that decade.  

 I'll Be Doggone is just a Motown mishmash.  

 Love Starved Heart is a true rarity: an album of vault material that doesn't waste your time; Gaye rivals Bob Dylan in the quantity of quality material left on the shelf.  

 Steer clear of the countless packages of bootleg-quality live material drawn from his erratic 1983 comeback tour, issued under titles like Greatest Hits Live, Performance, and In Concert. 

 The bonus disc of this 2-CD deluxe edition illuminates Marvin’s many false starts with multiple collaborators before he settled on the final framework. 

 Gaye maintained a parallel and almost equally successful career as a singer of romantic duets with labelmates such as Mary Wells ("What's the Matter With You Baby"), Kim Weston ("It Takes Two"), and his most significant other, Tammi Terrell. 

 Since the tragic shooting death of Marvin Gaye in 1984, collections, compilations, and unissued material have rained down on an apparently insatiable marketplace. Pick of the litter is the two-CD Very Best of Marvin Gaye. 

 The 2001 Deluxe Edition adds an earlier and substantially different mix and a rare live performance of the album from 1972. 

 There are no less than three packages trading under the title Love Songs: 1) the aforementioned Greatest Duets; 2) a Sony comp that again reshuffles the Midnight Love material; and 3) Love Songs: Bedroom Ballads. 

 He maintained a parallel and almost equally successful career as a singer of romantic duets with labelmates such as Mary Wells ("What's the Matter With You Baby"), Kim Weston ("It Takes Two"), and his most significant other, Tammi Terrell.