Midnight Love

Midnight Love is the final studio album recorded and issued by American soul singer Marvin Gaye and was the singer's first release from Columbia months after leaving his longtime label, Motown. It claimed the number one slot on NME Album of the Year.

BackgroundBy the late winter of 1980, Marvin Gaye was in a personal and professional doldrums. Weakened by a debilitating drug problem, an increasing debt to the IRS which had now extended to $4 million, two failed marriages and losing all of his equipment, Gaye, who had filed for voluntary bankruptcy, had moved away from the continental United States first settling in a bread truck in Hawaii then settling in London after agreeing with British-based music promoter Jeffrey Kruger to begin a European tour. After the tour ended, Gaye settled in London where he was trying to finish his last record with Motown titled In Our Lifetime. However, the album was leaked to Motown offices in Los Angeles by one of Gaye's bass players, which resulted in the singer finally cutting all ties with the label after they edited In Our Lifetime and released it in January 1981.

By that point, Gaye was advised by Belgian concert promoter Freddy Couseart to move away from London to his native country, Belgium, to get his life in order. Settling in Ostend, Belgium, Gaye was motivated by the beaches of the city's coastal port and was inspired to control his drug addictions cutting down on his use of marijuana and cocaine until eventually gaining brief sobriety. That late summer, the 42 year-old singer launched a comeback tour. Hearing of Gaye's tour inspired a number of record labels to visit him to sign with them. Gaye eventually decided to sign with CBS Records becoming the fifth Motown-associated artist (after Michael Jackson, Mary Wells, The Miracles, and Teena Marie) to do so.

Before a deal could be set, however, Gaye had to finish negotiations to get out of his Motown contract settling with them in March 1982. That month, he signed a three-album contract with CBS' Columbia division.

RecordingAlways a perfectionist, Gaye struggled to record material for the album. In the early summer of 1982, Larkin Arnold was anxiously awaiting word on Gaye's album. When he received no responses to his inquiries, he visited Gaye again in Belgium to learn of progress with the album. Gaye and Larkin butted heads during the conversation until Gaye's friend and collaborator of an upcoming autobiography, David Ritz, presented Larkin an audio tape demo of a song Gaye, Ritz and musician Odell Brown had worked on titled, "Sexual Healing". Arnold gave Gaye the OK on the song sensing it to be a hit. Other songs came with the help of Gaye's guitarist and brother-in-law, Gordon Banks. The album was recorded between April and August of 1982 in Ohain, Belgium. Gaye originally had intentions of recording a personal album depicting his emergence from drug addiction to celebrate his brief sobriety, but his longtime friend and original mentor, Harvey Fuqua convinced him to make songs he had written to fit the landscape of the times in the music industry. Inspired by the success of rivals like former label-mates Lionel Richie and Rick James as well as emerging megastar Michael Jackson, whom he felt was the greatest threat to his fan base, he decided to cut what he felt was "commercial enough" to grant him a comeback after years of chart inactivity. At the end of September 1982, Marvin was finally ready to release the album. That month, CBS released the first new Marvin Gaye single in over a year with "Sexual Healing".

Release and reactionThat September, CBS issued "Sexual Healing" as a single, which caught on to R&B radio listeners. Sales and airplay of the single reached a fever pitch by late October, when Midnight Love was released to record stores. The song then rose to number-one on the Hot Black Singles Chart becoming the fastest-rising R&B single in five years and Gaye's first major big hit since his disco smash, "Got to Give It Up". Upon his return to the United States, Gaye cut his first physical music video for the song in Ostend. The song successfully crossed over to pop audiences and by January had risen to number-three on the Billboard Hot 100. Later on, Billboard commented that among only two other singers - Aretha Franklin and Madonna - Gaye became the only male artist to place a song on every position of the Hot 100's top ten listings. Eventually staying at number-one on the R&B chart for a total of ten consecutive weeks, the song would become the longest-running number-one single on that chart during the entire decade later selling over a million copies. The RIAA would later certified "Sexual Healing" as a platinum single. Midnight Love was released in October of 1982 and peaked at number-seven on the Billboard 200 and number-one on the Black Albums chart becoming Gaye's eighth number-one album on that chart and his first number-one on that chart since 1977's Live at the London Palladium. It eventually sold over three million US copies certifying the album as triple -platinum while selling a total of six million albums worldwide, it also became a worldwide hit peaking at number-four on the UK Albums chart. The album yielded a few R&B-charted singles - "Joy", which peaked at number-thirty-one on the chart while the album's lone ballad, "'Til Tomorrow", rose as high as number-seventy-eight. "My Love is Waiting", the final track on the album, was issued initially as a b-side to "Sexual Healing" in the UK but the song received a positive response from UK fans that it was also issued as a single eventually peaking at number-thirty-four. The album was ranked #37 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 80's.