After brilliantly surveying the social, political, and spiritual landscape with
What's Going On
,
Marvin Gaye
turned to more intimate matters with
Let's Get It On
, a record unparalleled in its sheer sensuality and carnal energy. Always a sexually charged performer,
Gaye
's passions reach their boiling point on tracks like the magnificent title hit (a number one smash) and
"You Sure Love to Ball"
; silky and shimmering, the music is seductive in the most literal sense, its fluid grooves so perfectly designed for romance as to border on parody. With each performance laced with innuendo, each lyric a come-on, and each rhythm throbbing with lust, perhaps no other record has ever achieved the kind of sheer erotic force of
, and it remains the blueprint for all of the slow jams to follow decades later -- much copied, but never imitated. ~ Jason Ankeny