Marvin Gaye, His Classic Duets (Motown/UMe) 2020 Vinyl release

Marvin Gaye’s 1969 compilation Marvin Gaye and His Girls gets a 2020 makeover on vinyl, complete with a new title, new artwork, and a revised track listing. This iteration adds Diana Ross to the illustrious roster of duet partners already consisting of Kim Weston, Mary Wells, and Tammi Terrell. His Classic Duets has 14 tracks including new additions such as “You’re a Special Part of Me” with Ross, “California Soul” with Terrell, and “The Onion Song” with Terrell.
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Always an attractive album cover.

Where is "I Want You 'Round", "It's Got To Be A Miracle [[This Thing Called Love)", "Deed I Do", "Together", and "What Good Am I Without You"?

One thing I've loved about the charm about the original "Marvin Gaye & His Girls" was the even distribution and representation between "His Girls", Mary, Kim, and Tammi, 4 tracks each of them, some hits, as well as the just plain fun numbers, standards, and Motown standards, just as fun to listen to as the hits.

All I see is one on Kim Weston, two on Mary Wells, one on the added Diana Ross, and the rest, Tammi Terrell.

I've got my thumbs down on the new "Marvin Gaye & His Girls".

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Originally Posted by Ngroove

Where is "I Want You 'Round", "It's Got To Be A Miracle [[This Thing Called Love)", "Deed I Do", "Together", and "What Good Am I Without You"?

One thing I've loved about the charm about the original "Marvin Gaye & His Girls" was the even distribution and representation between "His Girls", Mary, Kim, and Tammi, 4 tracks each of them, some hits, as well as just plain fun numbers, standards, and Motown standards, just as fun to listen to as the hits.

All I see is one on Kim Weston, two on Mary Wells, one on the added Diana Ross, and the rest, Tammi Terrell.

I've got my thumbs down on the new "Marvin Gaye & His Girls".

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Itsa no fa me too, dawg. You’d think they’d have had four cuts for each girl. They might as well have reissued the Marvin & Tammi greatest hits.

Universal's marketing strategy is utterly mind boggling. We've all been waiting YEARS for the expanded cd editions of 'Reflections' and 'Ross' - and yet someone has come up with this! It's not a straight reissue of the original album so some time and effort has gone into this. Money has been spent. And to top it all it's on vinyl not digital. More money spent in its creation. It's not even a balanced compilation. Who's going to buy it?
Universal has more in common with the world of politics than I could ever have imagined.

After "Heaven Sent You I Know", my fave Marvin & Kim is "It's Got To Be A Miracle [[This Thing Called Love)". Neither are included anyway. I still like the cover though.

And NO Valerie Simpson...ooops...

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Originally Posted by mysterysinger

After "Heaven Sent You I Know", my fave Marvin & Kim is "It's Got To Be A Miracle [[This Thing Called Love)". Neither are included anyway. I still like the cover though.

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I've always loved the cover too....when I've first discovered it on cassette, then CD, and now, vinyl...another nutty memory from it, was when I've shown it to some of my friends, they didn't even know Marvin was once smoothly clean-shaven, haha!

But honestly, I'd prefer it best, had they just left the collection as it was on its original twelve tracks, 4 for Mary / Kim / Tammi, then along with that Diana track, add three more.

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Originally Posted by snakepit

And NO Valerie Simpson...ooops...

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I was thinking the same thing :)

So who is asking for this? Besides Harry?

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I'm a BIG fan of all the Marvin Gaye duet recordings, but I can't understand the rationale for either creating or releasing this product. If Universal said that they conducted some market/consumer research which identified a demand, and that this release was saleable and likely to be profitable, then I would defer to their judgment. Otherwise, it seems to be a rather questionable and poorly compiled release which isn't really an improvement on the original. On top of that, including several 'Valerie as Tammi' tracks is even more questionable when there are plenty of genuine M&T tracks they could have selected.

Marvin sells on vinyl - probably the best of any Motowner hence why there's always some form of a new release from him on it every few months of late. That's not even taking into consideration the many reissues of Whats Going On I've seen hit the racks in the past decade.

While the straight reissues haven't interested me as much, I have appreciated getting the expanded edition material like WGO Live or projects like You're The Man on vinyl. For all the drama on here over the lack of DRATS releases, the mono vinyl reissue of Reflections was very well done and a nice stop gap until the eventual CD expanded version comes out. I get the frustration that the customer had to essentially buy $150.00 worth of other mono albums to get it, but i'm glad it still made it out there.

As far as this Marvin reissue, my only complaint is if I were gonna stick Diana on this, I would've gone with My Mistake instead. It's certainly more readily heard or remembered of the two hits from the D&M album.

A very poor choice of a Diana & Marvin song, especially for the UK where You Are Everything was the biggest hit and is still popular. Perhaps My Mistake and You Are Everything to cover both sides of the Atlantic.

Yeah it does seem that Marvin Gaye gets the bulk of the reissues these days, especially vinyl reissues. In fact, all of his duet albums were reissued on vinyl in recent years, and they must have sold well enough to warrant yet another reissue. Marvin seems to be the primary Motown artist that all of the young vinyl collecting hipsters flock to.

And the next one release august 21,2020 :

Dream Of A Lifetime: Limited Edition Transparent Blue Vinyl


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