Blast From the Past
Era nostalgic and Marvin Gaye fans will completely enjoy liner notes which enlighten on how "Here, My Dear" came to be. Great songs from a great talent that to this day is sorely missed. Mr. Gaye pours out his feelings and delivers a wonderful musical compilation about insights into a time that was quite intense in his life.

Here, My Dear
What started out as Marvin's revenge album is truly one of his greatest works. Listening to this album makes me wish I had 1/10 of the talent needed to shape such incredible pain into such a beautiful work of art.
Of all of Marvin's albums I own, this is my 2nd favorite behind I WANT YOU & ahead of WHAT'S GOIN ON. Every song just flows so beautifully into the next as an open letter to his ex-wife, Anna Gordy about their courtship, marriage, problems & divorce.

The liner notes are excellent in taking the listener on the journey of the creation of this album and offers commentary on how Marvin worked in the studio shaping his feelings & experiences into songs. Although it was considered a "flop" in its day, fortunately it's not out of print so that new generations can discover and appreciate it for themselves.

I'd highly recommend this album to Marvin Gaye fans and newbies - it's just that good.

Marvin's Testimony of a Marriage Split
As by listening to this album since by purchasing, I felt like I heard a cry or a tear coming down from my eye. It's all right here in this record. People everywhere all go thru stuff daily with trying to solve a situation with a relationship or not in the limit of being in love or you like to express your emotions about being married, single, divorced, or what.

I can't put it into words because it'll be an interference. This shows where Marvin been going through his footsteps by breaking away from his first wife Anna Gordy in 1976 and thru the chaos of the IRS trying to attack him meaning he owed millions of $$$.

Here My Dear by far the best piece of work that Marvin's ever done in his life. You cannot deny that this flop or ain't worth your taste. This record been avoided by critics and/or record buyers because it's lack a wrong message or not saying anything. Thanks to writer David Ritz who believes this a great record.

anna's songs
This LP-CD has been in my collection for about 25 years now and i still play it about every week i guess. Anna's song is the best track i ever heard, listen to his singing her name, the best notes ever sung.
but the whole album is stunning, but i guess you know by the time you got to this place. now i'm anxiously awaiting the deluxe edition. normally these expandend editions don't give much satisfaction in the end, but the other marvin gaye exp. editions have been some of my favourites.

Loaded with ego... and absolutely lovely music
This just might be the single most egotistical album ever made. A double-album upon release (though it's only one CD), it's a concept album about Marvin's divorce with Anna Gordy Gaye, Berry's sister. The sparknotes version: Anna made Marvin's career a possibility, and Marvin repaid her by running off with a woman half his age. After Anna found out that "Let's Get it On" was not written for her, she filed for divorce. The judge granted that divorce and, in a bizarre move, ordered Marvin to pay her the royalties for the next two LPs he put out. At first, Marvin thought he'd just blow the two LP's off, knowing that he wouldn't make a cent off of them in the first place. But when he started writing, it ended up a beautifully, intricately arranged; diverse; personal; defensive attack on Anna. You see, Marvin spends the entire album convinced he did no wrong at all, even though he cheated on his wife. As such, the lyrics are often deplorable. A few little tidbits... "If you ever loved me with all your heart, you'd never take a million dollars to part"; "I never thought I'd see the day you'd put me through what you put me through" (and you could've avoided it if you hadn't ran off with a twenty-year-old...); "Why do I have to pay attorney fees?", "Anna, here's your song, the one I promised, baby, promised you all along"; "You tried to have them shackle me, bring me in. Tell me, what was it for?" The record's also padded out, as Marvin's albums at the time often were - "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You" (a beautiful ballad with wonderful vocal overdubs and amazing wah-wah and sax parts, to its credit - great song, maybe the best) is repeated as an instrumental and reprised for forty-four seconds; plus there's the infamous, totally unrelated, completely unfunny, eight-minute stream-of-consciousness P-Funk like filler "Funky Space Reincarnation" (which even then has Marvin's signature "Owww!" and, eventually, a good trumpet solo), a couple poor retro tunes that feature Marvin reciting in a stoned voice (title track; "I Met a Little Girl"), and the nauseating "You Can Leave, But It's Going to Cost You", with obnoxious keyboards and lyrics. But the music is gorgeous, complex, bridging several genres - it more or less reads as a history of 20th century black music, from jazz ("Sparrow") to gospel ("Anger) to doo-wop (`I Met a Little Girl") to smooth Motown soul ("When Did You Stop Loving Me"; "Time to Get It Together") to low-key funk ("Anna's Song"; "Is That Enough") to proto-rap ("Falling in Love Again"); the arrangements are Marvin's best since What's Going On, and the band is arguably better - the three saxmen, Charles Owens, Fernado Harkness, and Ernie Fields, are the real stars here, playing unpredictable parts over the songs that are more or less song-length solos; plus the vocal overdubs are always wonderful on the ears ("Time to Get It Together"; "When Did You Stop Loving Me"). Plus when Marvin focuses on things other than himself, he crafts a few tremendous universalist meditations ("Anger"; "Everybody Needs Love"; the free-jazz/funk combo "Sparrow"). Musically speaking the best song is arguably "Is That Enough", with a near-symphonic wall of wah'ed guitars; ironically, it's the one with the aforementioned lyric about attorney fees, which might be the worst lyric ever written in history. And the strings ("Anna's Song"; "Time to Get It Together") are wonderful. You know, the lyrics to this record invited to be bashed, slammed, and flamed into next week. But it's so musical, and so amazingly arranged, that I simply couldn't bring myself to doing that. So I just have to give it a good score and call it my second-favorite Marvin Gaye album, the best one being What's Going On, of course. If you can see past the ego, you'll find it's a beautiful record. And the arrangements are so good they keep the songs from feeling their running times, which often break the five-minute barrier - not counting the reprise of "When Did You Stop Loving Me", only four songs (title song; "Anger"; "Time To Get it Together"; "Falling in Love Again") - fall short of that mark. So this is a fine album, definitely. Even though I desperately wish I knew what the point of "Funky Space Reincarnation" was.