Marvin Gaye- "What’s Going On"
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Topic: Marvin Gaye- "What’s Going On"
Posted By: jimct
Subject: Marvin Gaye- "What’s Going On"
Date Posted: 07 February 2007 at 5:37pm
| Pat already does a great job in explaining all of the databases' LP/45 version distinctions for the many CD appearances, but I just wanted to add that my commercial 45, and both mono sides of my promo 45, all show a listed time of (3:40), but all have an actual time of (3:56). |
Replies:
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 01 July 2008 at 1:37am
| Has there ever been a discussion as to why the volume on the 45 version starts to fade normally around 3:27, then suddenly gets louder again at 3:45, then completely fades out? |
Posted By: bwolfe
Date Posted: 01 July 2008 at 10:27am
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That kind of thing would drive a person crazy.
Can you imagine playing it for the first time and thinking you had dead air? Unless it was properly marked by your PD. Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" had a false fade out too. Pauses in songs have always intrigued me. "Monday Monday", "The Little Girl I Once Knew", "Do You Love Me" and "Judy In Disguise" all has pauses or stops. Must have been an artistic thing. ------------- the way it was heard on the radio |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 01 July 2008 at 11:00am
Supposedly "Suspicious Minds" was done this way to replicate the way he performed it live. "Do You Love Me" was kind of an odd one since it almost sounds like a mistake when recording/mastering it...almost like the engineer thought the song was over & quickly faded it only to realize they were still singing. Definitely not your standard false ending. I remember in the early 70s when some Top 40 stations were playing a few selected album cuts, a station I worked at was playing "Molina" by CCR which has a very long (~5 second) false end. The station carted the song with the false end shortened. |
bwolfe wrote:Posted By: sriv94
Date Posted: 01 July 2008 at 11:06am
Couple of other classic ones would be the Young Rascals' "Good Lovin'" and James Taylor's take on "How Sweet It Is." ------------- Doug --------------- All of the good signatures have been taken. |
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 01 July 2008 at 12:14pm
|
I'll add the Byrds' "Turn! Turn! Turn!" to the list.
The first AM station I worked at had an antenna current meter that would purposely engage only when one pushed an "audio cut" button while taking meter readings. While this resulted in an accurate reading, it also caused a blatantly obvious decrease in modulation while that button was held down. On many occasions, I took adavantage of the pauses in the "Monday, Monday"s and "Turn! Turn! Turn!"s of the music world to unobtrusively comply with FCC regs. :) |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 01 July 2008 at 5:45pm
|
Do Ya Love Me" was not a false fade, but the band got quiet, then built it up again. I guess it was some sort of dance gimmick from the early 60s.
Now, I read that Marvin Gaye purposely faded "What's Going On" just to piss off the station DJs, like getting in the last word. ------------- |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 01 July 2008 at 8:50pm
| I had a radio instructor who once told me the false early fade on songs like "What's Going On", "Suspicious Minds", and "Do You Love Me" were put there as a guide for DJs so they'd know when to begin manually fading out the record to avoid exceeding the 3:00 run time threshold most stations abided by in those days. My instructor also claimed that if DJs didn't want the song to fade early, then they could simply "ride the gain" by gradually turning the volume up louder as the fade was in progress and then potting the volume back down when the music grew loud again. One thing making me question that explanation though is, why would the commercial 45 copies also contain the false early fades? |
Posted By: MPH711
Date Posted: 02 July 2008 at 1:04pm
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."Do Ya Love Me" was not a false fade, but the band got quiet, then built it up again.
I don't think it was band getting quiet. You can ride the gain on that fade and it's like the record just plays through |
Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 17 May 2013 at 5:52pm
|
my commercial 45 for the marvin gaye song 'what's going on'
issued as tamla 54201 starts with a 'whopp' sound before the music begins.....it sounds also like an echo effect......the 'anthology' cd version edits off this sound.....do any of the cd's claiming to have the '45 version' on it actually contain the 'whopp' echo on the intro?...btw, the 'anthology' cd version sounds almost mono as noted in the db as 'very poor stereo separation'... ------------- edtop40 |
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 17 May 2013 at 6:58pm
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Ed, I don't hear any "whopp" sound before the beginning of the music on my commercial 45 (a vinyl Columbia Santa Maria pressing, although the lacquer was cut by RCA Custom.)
But there is tape bleed-through just before the song begins (that "pre-echo effect.") It isn't part of the actual session recording; it's a result of the magnetic charges on the tape transferring to the silent portion preceding it (with which it remains in contact, once the tape is wound on the reel.) That "pre-echo" could have been avoided if they'd spliced in some non-magnetic leader tape ahead of the first note when the 45 was cut. |
Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 18 May 2013 at 5:30am
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yah shure, that's odd.....mark was kind enough to send me a
wave file of the hitsville box set version and it HAS the 'whoop' intro on it and matches perfectly.....my 45 run out groove info is machine stamped 'Z4KM-4435-1 C' then etched 'Q-S5-M5-S6-831M05'...yah shure, what does yours say? ------------- edtop40 |
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 18 May 2013 at 12:31pm
|
Okay, after listening to the Hitsville box track, I see what you were referring to, Ed (the "whopp" description is what threw me off: I was expecting to hear a percussive noise of some sort before what you termed the "whopp" sound, which is on my 45.) It could be just an untrimmed remnant from a count-off, but it does serve as a neat way to kick off the record.
I don't hear the vinyl 45's tape bleed-through at all on the track from the Hitsville box (which you really should have in your collection, Ed!) |
Posted By: VWestlife
Date Posted: 04 December 2020 at 9:11pm
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Was there ever a promo 45 of "What's Going On" with all or most of the talking at the beginning cut off, and starting with the music? Because that's the way I usually hear it played on the radio, starting when the music begins, with "Right on!" and the remaining talking overlapping it.
|
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 05 December 2020 at 12:34pm
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Both the mono and stereo 45 versions start with the music.
The only place I hear the 'right on' is on the LP version. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: LunarLaugh
Date Posted: 06 December 2020 at 2:33am
Sounds like an in-house edit of the stereo album mix. As far as I know, all 45 versions were the mono mix (as found on the Hitsville USA box set) without the "party" sound effects heard throughout the song. ------------- https://thelunarlaugh.bandcamp.com/ - Listen to The Lunar Laugh! |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 07 December 2020 at 6:28am
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Are there any real stereo 45 versions (or similar mixes)
out there? I have one labeled 'very poor stereo separation' from 1995s 'Anthology' but it's slightly rechanneled instead. Andy |
Posted By: LunarLaugh
Date Posted: 29 January 2022 at 2:29pm
|
You can possibly create something resembling a stereo 45
version by editing the intro and outro from the instrumental version found on Universal's "20th Century Masters: Best of The Funk Brothers" CD onto the stereo album cut. There still might be some lingering 'chatter' track once the vocal kicks in. I'm also not sure if the stereo separation of the two versions would make for a smooth edit. ------------- https://thelunarlaugh.bandcamp.com/ - Listen to The Lunar Laugh! |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 30 January 2022 at 12:05am
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I really can't believe I've missed this all my life. I just went over to youtube and looked for a 45 version. Sure enough, there's a false fade near the end.
This tells me that either all the stations I grew up with didn't play the final tag of this song, or didn't play the 45 version, EVER! I'm familiar with all the other songs mentioned, but not this one. I guess I'm going to have to look around here and see if I can find one of those Tamala 45's. My local 45 store is bound to have one for a couple dollars, so I can use it for reference. Also, kind of odd to hear it start without the intro of chatter. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 30 January 2022 at 6:17am
Possibly they DID play the 45 version, but the stations used heavy volume compression/processing which kept the volume level over-the-air consistent (or perhaps they carted it up correcting the volume drop). Even primitive/inexpensive units such as the Shure Level-Loc were sometimes used to handle this issue. I remember the same reaction when I first heard "Suspicious Minds" on vinyl a couple years later and never realized there was a volume drop/return on that fade based on prior radio play. Andy |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 30 January 2022 at 8:58am
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Andy -
I seem to remember that TM Century had a no false fade version of "Suspicious Minds" on one of their GoldDiscs. It's possible that your local station used that version. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 30 January 2022 at 11:31am
I suppose that's a possible explanation for my ignorance to the Tamala 45. What I don't understand is why they would pick that one, and none of the others. I think I can say with some confidence that I distinctly remember all the other false fades. It is peculiar to me as to why this one had to be fixed or edited. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: garye
Date Posted: 01 February 2022 at 9:53pm
I tried this out last night and it came out pretty nice on a first attempt! If you have a copy of 20th Masters: The Funk Brothers keep the 1st 8.9 seconds and then with the stereo LP version of Whats Going On remove the 1st 16 seconds off that and you'll have a nice stereo Copy recreation and it fades at 3:41. |
Posted By: ddipas
Date Posted: 11 June 2023 at 12:02pm
|
I just picked up a Canadian CD, "The Very Best Of Marvin
Gaye" (1994). It has the mono 45 mix of "What's Going On." However, the track ends after the first fade out followed by six seconds of silence! Kind of a weird choice. This CD also has the proper 45 version of "Sexual Healing," which is pretty hard to find. |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 15 June 2023 at 12:57pm
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The version on Motown's superb 1995 Marvin Gaye 2-CD collection Anthology is labeled in the database as stereo but with "very poor stereo separation".
You can hear some odd stereo-like artifacts if you listen in headphones. I just discovered that the left and right channels are out of synch by about two samples. If you re-synch the left and right channels, the stereo-like artifacts disappear, and it's dead-center mono, just like all the other copies of the 45 version that have ever been released. (I confirmed in a null test.) We should note this in the database as (M), but with desynchronization between the left and right channels. Or something to that effect. We shouldn't give people hope that the 45 version of "What's Going On" exists in stereo, or even poorly separated stereo. It doesn't. It's only mono. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 21 June 2023 at 5:53pm
The mono 45 of "Itchycoo Park" also has a fake fadeout. ------------- |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 21 June 2023 at 5:56pm
The mono 45 of "Itchycoo Park" also has a fake fadeout. ------------- |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 22 June 2023 at 4:55am
OK, a bit late to this party, but WRKO in Boston had a directional signal with different day and night patterns. Changing pattern involved dropping the carrier for a couple seconds while a bunch of relays changed the antenna parameters. The studio & transmitter engineers would often co-ordinate so a false end occurred right when it was time to do the pattern change.
If true, the joke would have been on him. Easy enough for DJs to dump out of a song early, especially one with a long fade or weird ending. I've done it countless times. |