Let's Get It On (song)
"Let's Get It On" is the seminal 1973 #1 smash sung by American soul music legend Marvin Gaye. The song held the #1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, from August 25 1973 to September 8. It replaced "Brother Louie" by Stories, and was replaced by "Delta Dawn" by Helen Reddy. Co-written with doo-wop pioneer Ed Townsend, the song was Gaye's plea for sexual liberation. In the aftermath of Gaye's legendary What's Going On album where Gaye was hailed as one of the social messengers and heroes of rock and roll and soul, Gaye changed course by reinventing himself as one of soul music's troubadours of romance, love and sex. Gaye was among the first performers to marry love and sex into a song. Before, most of rock songs either just talked about sex or mainly was about love (as was apparent in Gaye's early-to-mid 1960s work as Motown's leading teen idol). With "Let's Get It On" and its message, Gaye not only broke barriers but opened the doors wide open for the sexual revolution of the 1970s with Al Green as one of its other prominent leaders followed by Barry White and Teddy Pendergrass. By the end of the decade and further into later decades, newer soul superstars like Prince and R. Kelly took Gaye's message to heart. The song was given a makeover in late-2004 when producers mixed Gaye's vocals with a different musical production that has been labeled "stepper's music". Released in 2005 as a single, it has hit the Billboard R&B charts all over again proving Gaye's message still reigns true in the 2000s as it did in 1973.
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