Stevie Wonder

The essential Steve Wonder album. The sheer number of excellent tracks on Songs is astonishing, and Wonder balances his erudite social commentary with rapturous love songs and jaw-dropping musicianship. Funky, danceable and brilliant, the album is a culmination of his '70s aesthetic; it still sounds fresh today. Highlights include "Sir Duke" and "Pastime Paradise."

It's no accident that the rich, hortatory one-man music of "Love's in Need of Love Today" is counterposed against the more intimately devotional one-man music of "Have a Talk With God," or that when the theme turns sociopolitical in "Village Ghetto Land" Stevie's synthesizer turns from African sounds to an ironic (though elegant) string-quartet minuet--the calm detachment of which is rudely interrupted by a jazz-funk tribute from Stevie's Wonderlove band, which then moves into the danceable black-music tribute "Sir Duke." And in themselves the words are much funnier and trickier than the sociospiritual bullsh*t or Maruice White or Kenny Gamble; as validated by the wit, pace, and variety of the music, they come close to redeeming the whole genre. (Grade - A)