Amazon.co.uk Review
Songs in the Key of Life was the highest high-point of Stevie Wonder's career. More sprawling than
Innervisions and
Talking Book, this 2 LP-plus-EP was also less of a consistent stunner than either of those masterworks. That Songs retains an enormous amount of visionary relevance, though, is demonstrated not only in Coolio's borrowing of "Pastime Paradise" as a template for "Gangsta's Paradise", but in the cold-as-ice synthesized string quartet of "Village Ghetto Land". This is Stevie, so naturally that cut's anger is balanced by the ultra-buoyant "I Wish," "Sir Duke", and "Another Star".
--Rickey Wright
CD Description
SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE is a milestone in Stevland Morris'career and a masterwork of American popular music. Releasedin 1976, this double LP spent 14 of its 80 charting weeks at number one. From his sharp commentaries on American socialhistory and pro-peace supplications to some of his most intimate professions of love, witness Stevie Wonder at a prolific point in his career, casting his music further beyond R&B, funk, and disco than ever before.
Present here are someof Stevie's greatest hits in their original context: the widely-sampled horn swirls of "Sir Duke", comical baby-noise-laced jamming of "Isn't She Lovely" and fiercely poetic declaration of "As" still shine as brightly as ever. Perhaps lesswell-known are tunes like, "Joy Inside My Tears", a slow, entrancing, synth-vamp on love's redemptive powers, or the fast-grooving funkout, "Black Man", a compelling salute to America's pioneers of colour. The keyboard sounds are as variedas ever, the bass as waggish as Bootsy, the arrangements a consummate preparation of melody and harmony. KEY OF LIFE isan inspired work in which Stevie marvels at life's unexpected miracles.