Marvin Gaye, possibly the greatest soul artist to live, not just because of his incredible voice but because of incomparable mind. Marvin will forever be the leading voice of the battle between war and peace; his album “What’s Goin’ On?” forced a purposefully ignorant black and white America to acknowledge what was affecting it. He sang of love and freedom, but Marvin most importantly sang of sexual freedom; freedom which had just become “okay” to even insinuate.
Much like his female colleague Janis Joplin had done throughout her short lived career. She like Marvin sang of love, freedom and change. Although she promoted freedom to a new height, Janis pushed freedom to the point of hedonism; “if it feels good do it” was Janis’ motto. See “[just getting] it on” and “Freedom [being] another word for nothing left to lose” completely defined a generation; the fertilized to the seed that propelled us to today.
Aside from Janis and Marvin there are two other musical all-stars who carry the torch; two artists who like the other, would go on to revolutionize society. Those two artists are Prince and Madonna, and they have become bigger than there social ideas. Prince, the undisputed king of creativity, the man whose name was simply a symbol; Prince is an artistic genius, but his art was drenched in revolution. Prince more so than any other individual named
except maybe Madonna used sex and sensuality to make a point. Madonna understood just as Prince and her predecessors did that sexuality a human necessity, they both stood for love, peace, sex and consciousness. Socially they dug through the foundation of society, which allowed them to soar to heights unimaginable.
Marvin brought sex to the stage, and Prince unwrapped it; they made sexual openness a social norm, and used it as a platform to segue into the ideas we value today. Whereas Janis gave the one oppressed creative know as woman a voice, and Madonna put their voices to good use. Janis “[gave you] another little piece of [her] heart” and Madonna reminded you “don’t go for second best baby” because you didn’t have to. We all followed their lead, why? We followed them because they had transcended humanity…untouchables, they became our heroes our icons.