While most soul music already relies on a very direct relationship between life and artistic expression, Marvin Gaye may well be the first singer to subscribe to the current trend of confessional art. Presumably, inspiration is where you find it, and out of something as prosaic and antithetical to the creative process as his recent divorce case. Marvin Gaye has produced the proverbial silk purse: Here, My Dear is an exciting and personal work—his best since the towering What's Going On….

Starting on a bitter you asked-for-it note to Anna "… I guess I'll have to say this album is dedicated to you … although it may not make you happy, this is what you wanted …", Gaye gives the listener the impression that he or she is about to watch an embarrassing family quarrel, an airing of dirty laundry. Such fears and the chill of the dedication are quickly...