No need to hold back for so long: Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On will be celebrated this month with a digital deluxe edition packed with unreleased tracks.

Following the stirring social consciousness of his last album, 1971's What's Going On, Gaye used the musical canvas to dive deep into matters of the bedroom. Romance, carnal desire and the intersections between the two were explored in sessions split between Motown's Detroit studio - including contributions and their newly constructed headquarters in Los Angeles, including the album's first side, co-written with Ed Townsend and featuring favorites like "If I Should Die Tonight" and the title track.

While Gaye's own relationship with intimacy was documented as difficult, owing to childhood abuse from his father and a crumbling marriage to Anna Gordy (daughter of Berry Gordy, the head of Motown), this tension led to some of the most adulated soul music of its time. Let's Get It On further established Gaye as a sex symbol, and his smooth voice and expert come-ons earned him the highest-charting album of his lifetime (No. 2 on the Billboard 200) and, with the title track, his first No. 1 pop single in five years.

Let's Get It On was given the deluxe treatment at the dawn of Universal's 2CD deluxe edition series in 2001. That wealth of session material is mostly replicated here, although all 10 of the repeated tracks have been newly mixed for this digital box set and some tracks have since been re-contextualized to other projects related to What's Going On and the unreleased You're the Man. But in their place come a further 19 previously unreleased recordings: additional outtakes from the album sessions, a fuller selection of a 1973 session cut with co-writer/producer/arranger David Van DePitte - and, perhaps most surprisingly, a set of standards and ballads intended for a long-gestating album. (Fans know that LP was originally intended for release as The Ballads in 1979. Remixed material from that album was released on several albums following Gaye's 1984 death, and was properly released as Vulnerable in 1997; however, these 1973 vocals predate that album's ultimate presentation, which featured vocals from six years later.)

This digital deluxe set will be released Friday, August 25 - three days shy of the original album's release date. That same week, on August 23, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles will host a panel discussion on the album featuring Gaye's biographer David Ritz, Motown legend Smokey Robinson, producer Jimmy Jam and moderator Harry Weinger, longtime producer of Motown reissues. Pre-order links and the full track listing are below.

Let's Get It On (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (Motown/UMe, 2023) (iTunes / Amazon TBD)

* previously unreleased
** previously released bonus track with fresh mixes. Original mixes released on Let's Get It On (Deluxe Edition) - Motown 440 014 757-2, 2001

Original album (released as Tamla T-329, 1973)

1. Let's Get It On
2. Please Stay (Once You Go Away)
3. If I Should Die Tonight
4. Keep Gettin' It On
5. Come Get to This
6. Distant Lover
7. You Sure Love to Ball
8. Just to Keep You Satisfied

Single edits

1. Let's Get it On (Single Version) (released on Tamla T 54234F, 1973)
2. You Sure Love to Ball (Single Version) (released on Tamla T 54244F, 1973)
3. If I Should Die Tonight (Original LP Edit)

Album bonus tracks

1. Let's Get It On (Demo) **
2. Let's Get It On (Pt. II - a.k.a. Keep Gettin' It On) **
3. I Knew One Day My Day Would Come (Instrumental) *
4. Interlude #1 *
5. Please Stay (Once You Go Away) (Alternate Mix 1) **
6. Lovely Lady (Instrumental) *
7. If I Should Die Tonight (Demo) **
8. I Don't Have to Get High to Do It (Instrumental) *
9. Come Get to This (Alternate Mix 1) **
10. Distant Lover (Alternate Mix 1) **
11. You Sure Love to Ball (Alternate Mix 1 with Alternate Vocal) **
12. Just to Keep You Satisfied (Alternate Mix with Alternate Vocal) **
13. Interlude #2 *
14. If I Should Die Tonight (SaLaAM ReMi's Piano Mix) *
15. Just to Keep You Satisfied (John Morales' Stripped Mix) *

The David Van DePitte Sessions

1. Song #1 (Instrumental) *
2. Song #2 (Instrumental) *
3. Song #3 (Instrumental) **
4. Song #4 (Partial Vocal) *
5. Shake Well (Instrumental) *
6. Perfection (Instrumental) *
7. Cakes (Instrumental) **
8. My Love is Growing (Super Polished) **

Vulnerable: The 1973 Vocals

1. She Needs Me *
2. Why Did I Choose You *
3. Funny, Not Much *
4. This Will Make You Laugh *
5. The Shadow of Your Smile *
6. I Wish I Didn't Love You So *
7. I Won't Cry Anymore *