1969 Marvin Gaye: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

We've already had 'poppy' Motown from The Supremes and 'shouty' Motown from The Four Tops, but on 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine', a different, altogether more 'grown up' face of Motown is presented to the public. On this version anyway - though he co-wrote it, Gaye wasn't the first to record the song; both Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Gladys Knight and the Pips had got there first with versions that, true to form, were both a little bit poppy and a little bit shouty, but in grinding the track down to its heartbeat, Gaye does neither.

Whereas Smokey and Gladys could have been raging to themselves on the song's theme of lover horsing around behind their backs, Gaye is directly addressing his one time partner whose love he thought was solid. Gaye's 'Grapevine' opens with an extended prowling lope around its prey that before Gaye pounces to try and catch her off guard with the upper hand statement "Ooh, I bet you're wondering how I knew", and from there on in, Gaye delivers a vocal pitched perfectly between the anger of betrayal and the restraint of self respect.

"You could have told me yourself, that you love someone else" - would that have made it any better? Probably not, but Gaye's apportioning of blame is not as forthright as Gladys and Smokey's and, being tempered with the fear of overplaying his hand and pushing her away for good, the desperation is more pronounced and more effective because of it - for Gaye, the not knowing and the attendant doubt is somehow better than getting a definitive answer to the one question he doesn't want to ask.

But for all his restraint, the hurt of finding out second hand that his relationship is on the rocks shows through the cracks that the Funk Brothers' horrorshow string crashes and voodoo bassline break open to reveal the confusion and paranoia within (IS she really fooling around? DOES she really have a "plan" to make him blue? Or is Gaye feeding off the Chinese whispers of those backing vocals that play understated like voices inside his own head?) within until 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' boils and steams like the inside of a pressure cooker, with Gaye's lack of overt anger providing no release to defuse it - think Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' had tension to burn? Well this is the source Quincy Jones drew it from.

'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' oozes an adult class and sophistication that was unusual for a Motown recording - in this case, the little girls wouldn't know but the men would understand. A more perfect single you'd be hard pressed to find.