I Want You

Updating his highly percussive but string-laden groove for the disco set, Gaye clearly devised 1976’s *I Want You* as a makeout album. But the space-age synthesizers in the instrumental version of “After the Dance” rocket him straight into the stratosphere. And the Afro-Caribbean congas of “I Want You” and bossa nova lilt of “Since I Had You” support a mix of rhythm and beauty that refuses to box itself in—punctuated by Gaye’s own murmuring, the sound flows like a sweet, seductive stream.

I Want You, while it a Top Ten smash for Marvin Gaye in 1976, is not as generally as well-known as its predecessors for several reasons.