- The Definitive Collection · 2002
- Songs In The Key Of Life · 1976
- Songs In The Key Of Life · 1976
- Sing ¡Ven y Canta! (Soundtrack Oficial De Sing: Ven Y Canta Edicion De Lujo) · 2016
- Talking Book · 1972
- In Square Circle · 1985
- Talking Book · 1972
- In Square Circle · 1985
- For Once in My Life · 1968
- My Cherie Amour · 1969
- Songs In The Key Of Life · 1976
- The Definitive Collection · 1985
- Signed Sealed and Delivered · 1970
Essential Albums
- In 1974, Stevie Wonder was a multiple Grammy winner and the most critically revered pop star in the world. He was also considering leaving the music industry altogether. By telling the press that he was planning a farewell tour—and announcing he’d donate the proceeds to Ghanian charities—Wonder signalled that he didn’t feel his music was up to the challenge of making the world a better and more equitable place. Was it a all ploy in contract negotiations with Motown? Perhaps. But when Wonder’s next album, the sprawling double album Songs in the Key of Life, finally appeared in 1976, all was quickly forgiven. More than two years had passed since Wonder’s previous album—an eternity, given Wonder’s previous productivity—and all that pent-up demand made Songs in the Key of Life the fastest-selling album in history (it would sit at the top spot of the US album charts for more than three months). How did Wonder do it? By positioning himself as the benevolent overlord of a vast self-drawn cosmos, one with a remarkable cache of songs: Songs in the Key of Life runs nearly 90 minutes long, and rumours spread that there may have been as many as 200 demos left in the studio vault. The album was effortlessly melodic, broad in scope, deeply personal—and often just plain weird. In the era of the overblown rock epic, Wonder had created the most sprawling, empathetic and searching soul album ever released. Think we’re kidding? Start with the brassy, hook-filled and positively effusive chart-topping singles “Sir Duke” and “I Wish”, both of which have soundtracked countless barbecues and wedding receptions for decades now. At the other end of the spectrum: The stark reality-soul of “Village Ghetto Land” and “Pastime Paradise”, on which Wonder leaves the bandstand for the op-ed pages to decry the abandonment of the civil rights dream; and “Black Man”, which de-centered the Eurocentric history curriculum over a track as funky as anything Wonder yet recorded, culminating in a classroom call-and-response with a group of schoolchildren. Then Wonder’s own child, the recently born Aisha, shows up in the sugary sweet Girl Dad anthem “Isn’t She Lovely”. As Songs in the Key of Life nears its conclusion, Wonder clears the dance floor for 15 minutes of sumptuous gospel-disco in “As” and “Another Star”. But the album’s defining moment might come on a bonus track, one originally issued as an extra 45 with the album’s vinyl release. It starts in deep space with the Afrofuturist “Saturn”, a sci-fi fantasia that evokes no less than The Alan Parsons Project, but as that song’s last synthesiser chords fade out, Wonder zooms light-years in to an urban playground, where we can hear the sound of Black children skipping double Dutch. Sonically, culturally and emotionally, Songs in the Key of Life is much more than a gigantic collection of songs; it forms an entire worldview.
- 1973
- The most effective way to explain the importance of Stevie Wonder’s 1972 album Talking Book is by examining its two hit singles, each of which became a modern classic. The first was “Superstition”, which Wonder had originally written for Jeff Beck, but wisely decided to record for himself, too. Over an impossibly funky snare groove of swung sixteenth notes, Wonder coaxes a rhythmic croak out of his Hohner Clavinet D6, and then adds a Moog bassline, a horn chart and a lyric about the vagaries of belief and rational thought that could, with some edits, date to the Enlightenment. (And, by the way, he wrote, played and sang everything.) Four months after “Superstition” topped the pop charts, the same thing happened with “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”, a lullaby-sweet ballad with a lyrical sentiment that could’ve been drawn from the Great American Songbook, featuring a glimmering electric piano line and intricate backing harmonies that fit perfectly into the early blossoming of R&B’s quiet storm era. Here were the alpha and omega of Stevie Wonder, a hitmaker equally capable of algebraic funk and starry-eyed sweetness—someone who, like Michael Jackson, the nation had known since he was a soul prodigy. As it turned out, the now-twentysomething Wonder had a lot more to say. He’d been evolving at a steady pace since dropping the “Little” from his name in the mid-1960s. But Talking Book was his most significant leap forward yet. With “Superstition” and “Big Brother”—the latter a dig at early 1970s surveillance culture masquerading as Black political leadership—Wonder demonstrated that he could keep pace with politically minded peers like Sly Stone and Curtis Mayfield. With an ever-growing arsenal of cutting-edge instruments at his disposal, and few if any creative limits, Wonder began his unprecedented imperial stage on Talking Book. Even deep cuts like “Maybe Your Baby” and “Tuesday Heartbreak” expressed simmering romantic paranoia through, respectively, sultry funk and deceptively joyous soul. After more than a decade of standing in Berry Gordy’s significant shadow at Motown, Wonder used Talking Book to demonstrate that he’d mastered the ability to merge the dark and the light.
- By 1972, Stevie Wonder was already established as Motown’s in-house wunderkind. He’d released a stunning 13 studio albums for the legendary label before he was 21—including a 1963 live album titled The 12 Year Old Genius. As the 1970s dawned, however, Wonder began chafing at the creative restraints imposed upon him by the famously restrictive Motown founder Berry Gordy, and followed labelmate Marvin Gaye in negotiating a new contract, one that gave Wonder full creative control over his music, as well as the opportunity to experiment—both musically and politically. The back cover of Music of My Mind even includes a declaration of independence: “Stevie Wonder comes of age…Now he’s free,” it reads, before noting “this album is virtually the work of one man.” To be sure, Music was nowhere near as revolutionary as Gaye’s What’s Going On. At this point in his artistic evolution, Wonder’s newly untethered imagination was focused mostly on his exuberance (and worry) regarding his new marriage to singer-songwriter Syreeta Wright. Still, the album does find him pushing his ultramodern musical gizmos to their limits: On the seven-and-a-half-minute opener “Love Having You Around”, Wonder engineers a joyous and funky robot romanticism from the talk box and Moog bass, both of which accompany his trademark clavinet. That leads into the bittersweet ballad “Superwoman”, which finds Wonder patiently mansplaining his insecurity at the titular lady (widely assumed to be Wright) who wants to become a star herself. It’s an eight-minute mini-epic, one that picks up the narrative thread from Wonder’s 1971 weeper “Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer”—proof of Wonder’s budding fondness for self-referential concept records. But while the solemn “Summer” could’ve been released in the 1950s, the second half of “Superwoman” sounds like the future, courtesy of the shimmering, otherworldly tones Wonder wrenches from a room-sized analogue synth named TONTO, built by ambitious musician-engineers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff. Wonder took to TONTO because, he later explained, it seemed like the only medium capable of translating his fountain of musical ideas into recorded sound. Fittingly, Music of My Mind concludes with “Evil”, a relatively concise, TONTO-assisted production that sounds like a more soulful Emerson, Lake & Palmer production, and which finds Wonder offering his first statement on the malevolent forces threatening the modern world. He was just getting started.
Music Videos
- 2022
Artist Playlists
- His genre-blurring genius is still reverberating across new generations.
- Strutting soul, pop ambience, and psych-funk cacophony from the legend's admirers.
- Heaven has sent its funkiest angel down to sprinkle some romance around.
- His enormous heart fuels all his musical explorations.
- Everything's alright when singing from this songbook.
- Soul upstarts, pop prodigies, and jazz giants.
Singles & EPs
- 2020
Live Albums
Appears On
- Toasting to success with Stevie and Gibbs is a clear come-up.
- Spotlight on the music and legacy of the legend Stevie Wonder.
- Estelle celebrates the icon Stevie Wonder's 73rd birthday.
- His epic performance of “Superstition” brought people and Muppets together.
- The story behind this song is the power of music personified.
- Before “Gangsta’s Paradise” there was “Pastime Paradise.”
- 50th Anniversary of Stevie Wonder's 'Music Of My Mind.'
More To See
About Stevie Wonder
An impassioned vocalist, prodigious multi-instrumentalist, and visionary producer, Stevie Wonder is a truly transformative figure in the history of popular music. That he’s accomplished it without his sight is both the most astonishing and least remarkable thing about him. First emerging as a child star in the early ’60s, covering Ray Charles standards under the name Little Stevie Wonder, Stevland Hardaway Judkins (born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950) would, by decade’s end, graduate to the more sophisticated soul of Motown-defining singles like “For Once in My Life,” showing future teen idols like Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber how to gracefully age out of kinder-pop novelty. As Black Power politics seeped into the early-’70s cultural landscape, Stevie became a symbol of both the movement’s righteous indignation and its hope for a more socially just world. His staggering run of classic albums—from 1972’s Talking Book to 1976’s Songs in the Key of Life—helped lend legitimacy to the LP format for black soul/R&B pop artists who, with few exceptions, were wrongly relegated to singles status. With them, he showed how speaking up and getting down were not mutually exclusive ideals, fashioning a singular style of psychedelic funk where even the grittiest tracks, such as “Higher Ground,” were infused with spiritual uplift. (And in writing, performing, and producing much of the material all on his own, he established the model of artist-as-auteur embraced by funk pioneers like Prince and rap icons like Kanye West.) But even in this fruitfully experimental phase, Stevie was still producing eternal wedding slow-dance standards like “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” and “Isn’t She Lovely,” and as the ’80s beckoned, he effortlessly adapted to the times with the synth-slicked soul of “Part-Time Lover” and the irresistible adult-contemporary serenade “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” While his output slowed after the ’90s, he remains a ubiquitous, towering figure in pop: Whether he’s singing at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration or blowing harmonica on Mark Ronson’s 2015 hit album, Uptown Special, a Stevie Wonder appearance carries all the grandeur and gravitas of a papal blessing.
- HOMETOWN
- Saginaw, MI, United States
- BORN
- 1950年5月13日
- GENRE
- R&B/Soul