With Barry White on the wane, Marvin Gaye seems determined to take over as soul's master philosopher in the bedroom, a position that requires little but an affectation of constant, rather jaded horniness. The pose has already been established in Let's Get It On …, on which Gaye was hot, tender, aggressive, soothing and casually raunchy—the modern lover with all his contradictions.

I Want You continues in the same vein but with only the faintest traces of the robust passion that shot through and sustained the earlier album…. As pillow talk this is entirely too limp, and in spite of the presence on several tracks of a woman's delighted sighs and moans (such a common effect these days that one is surprised not to find a background orgasm credit), the action here isn't much more than attractive but unenthusiastic foreplay. Gaye pleads and cajoles—"Baby please let me...