Songs In The Key Of Life

Stevie Wonder | Format: Vinyl

Product Details

• Vinyl
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Motown
• ASIN: B000FPFCJ4
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #130,786 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

STEVIE WONDER Songs In The Key Of Life (80s German issue of the 1976 18-track double LP Stevies masterpiece including Sir Duke I Wish Pastime Paradise Isnt She Lovely and As. Despite a small half inch split in one of the top edges of the gatefold sleeve the vinyl is flawless complete with bonus 4-track 7 vinyl EP and large 24-page lyric booklet ZL72131)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Last Great Double Album to Me, February 18, 2008

By 

A customer "mistermaxxx" (usa) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Songs In The Key Of Life (Vinyl)

what can I say about Stevie WOnder that hasn't already been said?? Musical Genius and trensetter along with creating a style and vibe all his own. this DOuble Album is the kind of album which reflects a wide range of topics from everyday life and Love and everything else in between and a Musical Blend of Stews that sizzle from start to finish. "As" is always the song that moves as does "isn't she lovely", Another Star, knocks me off my feet, I wish, sir duke,etc... so many great songs, stylings and Production that still blows the mind some 30 plus years later. incredible Music from an Incredible Musical Genius.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest double-album ever made, October 4, 2008

By 

finulanu ""the mysterious"" (Here, there, and everywhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Songs In The Key Of Life (Vinyl)

So how am I expected to speak objectively about this album? I don't get it. I've loved it for seven years now. It's true that there's absolutely no reason for this to be a two-hour double album - "Love's In Need of Love Today", "Ordinary Pain", "Isn't She Lovely", "Joy Inside My Tears", "Black Man", "As" and "Another Star" are only made as long as they are because of their codas. But I wouldn't trade any of those codas for anything.

Okay, so maybe two minutes of students and teachers shouting at each other at the end of "Black Man" is a bit over-the-top, but even then I gotta give Stevie my props for pulling something that daring and that avant-garde. Besides, the first six minutes are sociopolitical funk at its best. And while on an objective basis the funky ending to "Ordinary Pain" is annoying, it makes perfect sense in context of the song! It makes it feel like a conversation between two people. The part sung by Stevie is from the perspective of someone who's sad about the breakup, while the part sung by that woman is someone angry at the guy and happy about the breakup. And while the melancholy piano ballad section is by far the best of the two, it just wouldn't feel complete without the ending. "Love's in Need of Love Today" and "Joy Inside My Tears" are worth their lengths because you get to hear Stevie belt, "Another Star" is perfectly fine being eight and a half minutes long because of all the fantastic solos, and "As" justifies its length with the solos (ooh! Organ!), the total change of pace (morphing into gritty funk temporarily), and because of the Stevie belting coda. And you think I'm gonna ask him to take off the end of "Isn't She Lovely", arguably the ultimate expression of joy on any record ever made? As I'm sure you well know, it's Stevie playing his harmonica as a backdrop for his baby daughter crying and "talking" and being curious and cute and all. It's amazing.

Of course, any of these songs could've functioned as three-minute pop songs - in fact, "Isn't She Lovely" was a pretty big hit - but then they just wouldn't feel complete. In fact, it makes me wish that several other songs received similar treatments! For instance, what if he had expanded on the dueling horns of "I Wish"? Or that build-up at the end of "Pastime Paradise" when the chorus singing in Hindu gets louder and more intense? Or that organ solo at the end of "Summer Soft"? Or simply repeated the chorus of "Knocks Me Off My Feet" for several minutes? It works fantastically on the other songs, especially "As", which is my favorite song on the record because of the coda, when the chorus gets repeated and repeated and repeated while the organ and the acoustic guitar square it off and the drummer kicks total butt. Oh, and Herbie Hancock plays keyboards on it. I shouldn't have to tell you how awesome that is.

And that's just half the album. The short songs all add a lot. "Knocks Me Off My Feet" is a fantastic, deceptively complex love song with an amazing chorus... and it's performed entirely by Stevie. "Sir Duke" is a fantastic big-band/funk hybrid with some of the best horns in Stevie's history, "I Wish" is just as good as its obvious model, "Superstition", and maybe a little better; "Pastime Paradise" is a haunting Eastern-influenced meditation on injustice with some of the best lyrics on that record, "Summer Soft" is better than all of the cheesy soft rock it set out to imitate and it's again got a great, if short coda, "Ngiculela/Es Una Historia/I Am Singing" is a good Brazilian track, far better than most give it credit for; "Saturn" is a naïve but beautiful song about world peace, and honestly I love the message, "Ebony Eyes" is an awesomely fun love song, "All Day Sucker" is one of his best funk songs, and "Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)" shows that nobody could beat this guy on harmonica.

Sure, there's a bit of filler, but you know why I'm perfectly fine with that? For one, I get the sense this is a concept album about life and love, and neither of those things are perfect. So why should an album about such topics be? For another, the filler isn't filler in the traditional, tossed-off-to-round-out-the-album sense - they're all carefully written, produced, and arranged filler. "Have a Talk with God" and "Village Ghetto Land" don't blow my mind or anything, but it's clear a lot of effort was put into them (though the first has one cool synthesizer part). Especially "Have a Talk with God", which uses overdubbed vocals and synthesizers. You know why I think they were worked hard on? Because Stevie's the only musician who appears on either track! For a third, they add to the scope of the album (especially the baroque "Village Ghetto Land"), and for a fourth, the whole thing would just seem incomplete without, say, the gentle "If It's Magic" or the smooth instrumental "Contusion". I don't know why, but they just would.

You need to hear this album straight through, start to finish, just for all the effort put into the arranging, producing, writing, and performing of the album. Yeah, you could get on iTunes, cut the songs with the big long codas short, knock off the fillers entirely, and make that your Songs in the Key of Life. But if you played it, and then played the original, you'd probably find yourself liking the original more.

Sadly, this marked the end of Stevie's most prolific era - while all the work he put into this project certainly paid off, I'm also willing to bet it wore him out, which is why his proceeding releases came so slowly. Counting all the students and teachers on "Black Man", over 120 different people performed on this album, and that's not counting the horde of people who also helped out in other ways - the big-name musicians are Herbie Hancock, "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow, Jim Horn, George Benson, Minnie Ripperton and Syreeta Wright, while apparently Jeff Beck, David Bowie, Alice Coltrane, Chick Corea, the Doobie Brothers, Gil Scott-Heron, Leon Huff, Kenny Gamble, the Jacksons (as in "the Jackson 5 sans Michael), Quincy Jones, Jesse Jackson, Eddie Kendricks, Carole King, the Miracles, Van Morrison, the Pointer Sisters, Diana Ross, Edwin Starr, the Temptations, Jr. Walker, Bill Withers and Frank Zappa, among many others, all also contributed something.

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest R&B album in the history of music, January 23, 2009

By 

Alan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Songs In The Key Of Life (Vinyl)

As someone who purchased this album when it came out years ago, the songs are still fresh. I put this album up against any R&B artist, neo soul artist, hip hop artist, anyone. This album is the bomb with a capital B.