The success of Marvin Gaye’s landmark 1971 record What’s Going On helped pave the way for subsequent Gaye albums such as 1972’s Trouble Man. The score and soundtrack to a Blaxploitation film of the same name, the record allowed Gaye to flex his composer muscles even more greatly than he had done in the past. While Gaye’s incomparable vocals are mostly absent (Trouble Man is a largely instrumental record), his willingness to venture into a predominantly jazz territory for the album showed the musician had more than one trick up his sleeve.