In Our Lifetime

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Our Lifetime
Studio album by Marvin Gaye
Released	January 15, 1981
Recorded	1979, Marvin's Room, Los Angeles, California (The Love Man Sessions) 1980, Air Studios, London, England Odyssey Studios, London England
Genre	Funk/soul
Length	41:30 (original album) 40:07 (1994 re-release) 61:59 (2007 edition, disc one) 76:42 (2007 edition, disc two)
Label	Tamla
Producer	Marvin Gaye
Professional reviews
Allmusic link BBC (favorable) link Robert Christgau (A-) link
Marvin Gaye chronology
Here, My Dear (1978) In Our Lifetime (1981) Midnight Love (1982)

In Our Lifetime is a 1981 album by Marvin Gaye for the Tamla (Motown) label, his final release on the label. It was the follow-up to the critical and commercial failure of Here, My Dear, a double album which chronicled the singer's divorce from Anna Gordy.

Entirely written, produced, arranged, and even mixed by Gaye himself, In Our Lifetime is seen as one of the best albums from the singer's later Motown period.^[1]

[edit] History

[edit] Recording

By 1979, Marvin Gaye was at a professional ebb in his career with mounting personal problems. He was two years without a hit. His 1978 album, Here, My Dear, which was an autobiographical look at the singer's damaging relationship with his former wife, Anna Gordy, had bombed due to problems between the artist and Motown and Marvin was determined to regain the audience he felt he had lost with the album. Recording initial demos to what was supposed to be a "party" record titled Love Man, Marvin felt into more problems after the IRS foreclosed on his homes, cars and recording studio.

Feeling defeated, Marvin left Los Angeles first settling in Hawaii where he tried continuing work on Love Man, then after being brought to London by a British musical promoter for a European tour, he settled there to finish recording the album, which underwent a reinvention in the middle of sessions. Feeling that the original mix of Love Man was lyrically limiting - the album went from a "party" concept to a concept documenting his fallout in his relationship with second wife, Janis, he recut the album where he talked about his personal problems and expose a religious and psychological view into his cathartic life while ironically keeping the funk atmosphere of the original album.

Finally, in the fall of 1980, having cut records that were going to be In Our Lifetime?, Marvin had felt confident that eventually he would finally be done with the album. However, as it turned out, when Marvin's bassist Frank Blair presented the rough draft of the album, Motown decided to mix the album differently than Marvin initially intended, include an unreleased cut (the lyrically-conscious "Far Cry") - in which a jazz vocal was mostly edited out and deleted the question mark from the album, in which Marvin said he had included to ask if "Armageddon would come in our lifetime?".

[edit] Release and reaction

When In Our Lifetime was finally issued in recording stores on January 15, 1981, Marvin was angry over its rush release. Upon hearing it, he said the label had reedited the album without his rightful permission in which Motown admitted to try to make the album commercially viable. However, sales for the album were low despite its critical success producing a sole R&B hit with the Stevie Wonder tribute/religious ode, "Praise" and peaking at number thirty-two on the Billboard Top 200 album charts. After its release, Marvin asked to be let go off of his contract which was finally granted after CBS Records' urban division president Larkin Arnold bought Marvin out of his Motown contract ending the singer's 21-year relationship with the company in 1982, where he recorded most of his final album, Midnight Love, in Belgium. Over the years, the album was forgotten up until the album was re-released in 1994 in response to the tenth anniversary of Marvin's death by Motown, including the sole Love Man release, "Ego Tripping Out", as part of the tracklisting. On June 19, 2007, twenty-six years after the album's release, Hip-O Records re-released the album as an expanded edition which included not only the album as it was in its original release but also included alternate cuts from different studio recordings from London's Air and Odyssey Studios, featuing the original 1979 single of "Ego Tripping Out" including an alternate cut from the "In Our Lifetime" sessions. The second disc released what was from the "Love Man" sessions with instrumental productions that were included in "Lifetime" under different lyrics and different titles.

The reissue restored the question mark at the end of the title and was limited to 5,000 copies. ^[2]

[edit] Track listings

All songs were written, arranged, composed and produced by Marvin Gaye

[edit] Original 1981 release

1. "Praise" - 4:51
2. "Life Is For Learning" - 3:39
3. "Love Party" - 4:58
4. "Funk Me" - 5:34
5. "Far Cry" (Gaye) - 4:28
6. "Love Me Now or Love Me Later" - 4:59
7. "Heavy Love Affair" - 3:45
8. "In Our Lifetime" - 6:57

[edit] 1994 re-release

1. "Ego Tripping Out"¹ – 7:18
2. "Praise" – 4:54
3. "Life Is For Learning" – 3:41
4. "Love Party" – 5:01
5. "Funk Me" – 5:30
6. "Far Cry" – 4:34
7. "Love Me Now or Love Me Later" – 5:00
8. "Heavy Love Affair" – 3:49
9. "In Our Lifetime" – 7:00

[edit] Expanded Love Man Edition re-release

[edit] Disc one

1. "Praise" (Air Studios Mix) - 4:51
2. "Life Is For Learning" (Air Studios Mix) - 3:39
3. "Love Party" (Air Studios Mix) - 4:58
4. "Funk Me" (Air Studios Mix) - 5:34
5. "Far Cry" (Air Studios Mix) - 4:28
6. "Love Me Now or Love Me Later" (Air Studios Mix) - 4:59
7. "Heavy Love Affair" (Air Studios Mix) - 3:45
8. "In Our Lifetime" (Air Studios Mix) - 6:57
9. "Nuclear Juice" (Air Studios Mix Outtakes) - 5:46
10. "Ego Tripping Out" (Air Studios Mix Outtakes) - 4:55
11. "Far Cry" (Air Studios Mix Outtakes) - 6:21
12. "Ego Tripping Out" (Love Man: The Single) - 5:13
13. "Ego Tripping Out - Instrumental" (Love Man: The Single) - 3:43

[edit] Disc two

1. "Praise" (Odyssey Studios Mix) - 5:09
2. "Life Is For Learning" (Odyssey Studios Mix) - 3:53
3. "Heavy Love Affair" (Odyssey Studios Mix) - 4:40
4. "Love Me Now or Love Me Later" (Odyssey Studios Mix) - 5:43
5. "Ego Tripping Out" (Odyssey Studios Mix) - 4:37
6. "Funk Me" (Odyssey Studios Mix) - 5:13
7. "In Our Lifetime" (Odyssey Studios Mix) - 5:51
8. "Love Party" (Odyssey Studios Mix) - 5:18
9. "Life's a Game of Give and Take" (The Love Man Sessions) - 4:57
10. "Life Is Now in Session" (The Love Man Sessions) - 4:04
11. "I Offer You Nothing But Love" (The Love Man Sessions) - 6:03
12. "Just Because You're So Pretty" (The Love Man Sessions) - 5:06
13. "Dance 'N' Be Happy" (The Love Man Sessions) - 6:49
14. "Funk Me, Funk Me, Funk Me" (The Love Man Sessions) - 5:49
15. "A Lover's Plea" (The Love Man Sessions) - 6:10

• The cover was designed by Neil Breeden. Rapper Daz Dillinger paid homage to the cover on his first solo album, Retaliation, Revenge & Get Back.

• ¹Originally supposed to be issued on Gaye's aborted 1979 album, Love Man, the song was included in a 1994 re-release of the album. This version included an alternate mix of the song's original 1979 release and its b-side instrumental.

[edit] References