1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 360. Stevie Wonder – Songs In The Key Of Life (1976)

 

I mentioned in the last entry that Jorge Ben’s África Brasil is music filled with the joy of being alive. The same could be said, I think, of Stevie Wonder’s music. Even when he’s being political and lambasting Nixon, he still seems to exude positivity. 

This double album is seen as the culmination of his “classic” period, all the more remarkable because he was thinking of giving up music in favour of charity work with children in Ghana.  
There are famous hits galore on here – As, Another Star, Sir Duke (which features the awful dad-joke of a lyric “Just because a record has a groove, doesn’t mean it’s in the groove”, and Isn’t She Lovely (about his baby daughter Aisha, which is probably why he’s making Dad jokes). This track is longer than the single version, featuring overdubs of Wonder playing with his daughter, as well as an extended harmonica solo (which it’s a shame isn’t on the radio edit as it’s excellent). I think As and Another Star are probably extended album cuts as well since they’re 7 and 8 minutes long respectively, again with extended solos. 

Pastime Paradise you will recognise from Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise – Coolio doesn’t so much as sample as take the entire track and redo the verses, you may as well go with Wonder’s version. Although, it has to be said, Coolio’s version serves quite well as a follow-up to Wonder’s Village Ghetto Land, probably his most polemic piece on the album. It’s sort of Wonder’s Eleanor Rigby, a strings-backed piece about the lives of those in poverty. 

And talking of which, Black Man is a tour de force wherein Wonder sings about the contributions of people of all skin colours to American (and world) history. And despite the title, and an understandable focus on black history, Wonder does acknowledge the contribution of white abolitionists and inventors to the improvement of humanity, among all ethnicities, so there’s no cause for twitchy basement-dwellers to get their tiki torches out. 

It helps that it’s a great tune as well as educational, and the track ends with an extended section of teachers calling the names and contributions of people and children shouting back their skin colour – the point being that everybody has something to contribute (and subtly, reminding us of all the people of African, Native American, South Asian, and East Asian descent who did important things in history). Now, one could argue that it’s somewhat insulting these days to use the descriptions “red” and “yellow” for people of Native American and East Asian descent respectively, but the sentiment of the song has its heart in the right place. Listen to it before morons try to ban it. 

There is a huge list of personnel for the album, mainly for people credited with backing vocals, handclaps, and percussion, which tells you a lot about the depth of the production. On the other hand, a lot of it is Wonder doing the bulk of the work. He seems to have added some more keyboard sounds to his repertoire – the clavinet funk is still there, but there are some great electronica noises, and I think the “strings” on Ghetto Wonder Land are actually synth – there’s nobody credited with strings that I could find, and they sound just that little bit artificial.

I didn’t notice any Side Three Fatigue with this, a remarkable feat in itself. Not every track grabbed me as tightly as some, but none really dragged, a testament to Wonder’s songwriting, and an album worthy of the accolades heaped upon it. His best one yet? I’d say so.