Customer Reviews

In Square Circle

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Square Circle is another classic Stevie Wonder album. The album features his usual themes; ballads, upbeat r&b and songs with a social bent. The socially conscious songs are all strong including "Land Of La-La", "Spiritual Walkers" and "It's Wrong (Apartheid)". "Part Time Lover" is a shimmering workout number that is as good as anything he's ever done. The song became his ninth and final number one song (although he would hit number one in 1986 as part of Dionne Warwick's "That's What Friends Are For" song). "Go Home" is an underrated gem with it's driving keyboards and funky beat. "Overjoyed" is a lush beautiful ballad that just soars to the heavens. In Square Circle hit number four on the charts but it marked the end of a 14 year run of chart dominance for Mr. Wonder. To date, he has not reached the top ten on either the singles or albums chart since this album.

As a kid who became a big fan of Stevie Wonder after hearing That Girl in the late 70s, I had been telling my friends for years just how cool Stevie Wonder was. In 1985, Stevie made my argument for me with In Square Circle, certainly his best album of the last 20 years. The single Part-Time Lover was a huge, huge hit, and the song has such great beat and rhythm that it always sounds fresh and exciting. Go Home also saw success as a single, but it's probably my least favorite song on the album. Then there was Overjoyed; I'm not sure it ever got the attention it deserved as a single. Quite simply, it is one of the most beautiful songs of Stevie Wonder's incredible career. The rest of the album is a smorgasbord of musical delight. I Love You Too Much is a powerful, energetic love song, while Spiritual Walkers and Land of La La are hard-driving songs with infectious beats. If it's slow Stevie Wonder ballads that you want, look no farther than the tender Whereabouts and precious Never in Your Sun. Stranger on the Shore of Love represents the best of both sides of Stevie Wonder, and I think it could have been a huge hit had it been released as a single. The album closes with both a political and moral track called It's Wrong (Apartheid), a song protesting the system of apartheid that still existed in South Africa at the time this album was released.

In Square Circle was actually the very first CD I ever owned, and it still stands as a showcase of what CD technology could do. Overjoyed features the calming sounds of ocean waves in the background, giving the song a very distinctive sound; I Love You Too Much has a unique brush-like percussion beat driving it, and it comes through loud and clear on CD. Stevie was always ahead of his time, and he is one of the few performers who absolutely deserves the title of musical genius. In Square Circle helped introduce Stevie Wonder to a new generation of listeners, and it stands as one of the greatest albums of the late, great 1980s.

Stevie had a great success with songs here. I especially love Land of LaLa, Overjoyed, and Whereabouts! A great album is hard to find but I found it here!

Let me start off by saying that no solo artist in the history of popular music has ever had a run like Stevie's. When it comes to critical and commercial fame, he was the man for 15 or 16 years straight. The only other artist that comes close is Prince with about 12 years and Madonna (who didn't write half of the stuff she did at the beginning). And truthfully, who would put dance queen Madonna in the same league as Stevie? Not too many I would think. In Square Circle was the last of the great Stevie albums. Let's look at it song by song.
Part-time Lover: Take the catchiest, dancable beat you can think of and mix it with a great story about cheatin', a cool yet eerie synth line and a great doo wop riff from a guy named Luther Vandross and what do you get? Another number one hit for the Wonderman. This is definately lite Stevie but the song is too catchy not to love. Being Stevie though, he ends it with a lesson: The person who was doing the cheating throughout the song finds that their lover was cheating on them too! A great fun pop song. I Love You Too Much: Stevie's keyboard playing is still great here and it's the main show in this yet another layered work. Whereabouts: The first time I heard this song I didn't really know what to make of it. It's not the classic Stevie ballad and it's not his regular mid-tempo ballad. It's almost show tune like in it's cadence. Don't get me wrong, it's a good song that has grown on me and hopefully it will grow on you too. Stranger On The Shore Of Love: One of the two low points on this album (See Land Of La La). The title is used as a metaphor in the song but it just doesn't work. The song was done with Ain't No Use from Fulfillingness First Finale as a model but is not even close to being in the same league as that song. Skip it. Never In Your Sun: This song has been highly overlooked. The rhythm was used by teen pop idol Debbie Gibson in her biggest hit Only In My Dreams. It's a sweet song about bringing happiness to people when they're down. Sweet vocals and a good harmonica solo helps lift the song to another level. Spiritual Walkers: Who are the Spiritual Walkers? Jehovah's Witnesses and Hari Kirshnas to start. They are those who are so into their religion, their God that they live to preach his word. In the song Stevie sings about us hiding from them when they knock on our doors or approach us. These are people who's world revolve around God and we hide from them. The music is dancable but at the same time is more of a march. A good song. Land Of La La: See Stranger On The Shore Of Love. Go Home: Jazzy, funky and cool all at once is this song. Funky horns weave in and out of an even funkier bassline. The song is about a person in love with someone and who is willing to do anything for that person. Yet the person pushes them away. Of course at the end, Stevie being Stevie, that person realizes that they need the other but it's too late. Chek out the background vocals on this one. Pretty cool. Overjoyed: One of the last classic ballads he's done. Overjoyed was an ok hit when originally released but has become one of his most requested and respected songs in his repertoire. The song was written while he was doing Secret Life Of Plants but it didn't fit in with the rest of the album. Well it fits in perfectly here. The rhythm section is the sounds of water, birds chirping and pebbles dropping. Stevie's strings (yes, he does write his string parts. Mr. Riser just orchastrates them for him) are beautiful and very tricky at the climax of the song. Besides the amazing Lately from Hotter Than July, it is my favorite ballad of not only Stevie's but anyone else too. Apartheid (It's Wrong): Another great finish to a great album. It is the best anti-apartheid song written and one of the best polital songs of his career. He uses African vocalist singing in their native language as background vocals. The rhythm is literally crazy and hypnotic using african instraments. The last words are shouted/sung, "Freedom is coming...hold on tight!" Just wonderful.
As I said when speaking about Songs In The Key Of Life, if you get this album, you own a piece of music history, I say it about In Square Circle but for other reasons. This turned out to be the closing of an incredible chapter of an amazing musical journey. Oh Stevie continues to record and every album has at least a song or two that pushes the boundaries of music, but not the entire disk. Stevie has matured became in the late 80's very involved with political matters for his children's and our's sake. So, in a lot of ways, he's moved on to more important things. Get this cd. It is the last of the great ones by one of the most important artist in music history.

"In Square Circle" was the first Stevie Wonder album that I had heard. This album does not compare to his 70's output (i.e. Innervisions, Songs In The Key of Life, hence the four star rating), but this is a great album in its own right. I see this album as the bridge between the 70s Stevie and the Stevie of today. This album definitely sounds like it was made in the 1980s (it does sound dated), but Stevie was still writing beautiful songs. In my opinion, "It's Wrong (Apartheid)" is his best protest song (better than "Dark 'n Lovely" from Characters and "Happy Birthday" from Hotter than July) that Stevie has ever done.

Ranking the songs
1. Part Time Lover (10/10)- one of Stevie's best songs
2. I Love You Too Much (8/10)-an OK song,but sounds like filler to me
3. Whereabouts (10/10)-a very underrated song
4. Stranger on the Shore Of Love (7/10)-probably the weakest cut on the album
5. Never in Your Sun (9/10)-Stevie gets down on the harmonica
6. Spiritual Walkers (8/10)-great beat, but that's about it
7. Land of La La (8/10)-see above
8. Go Home (9/10)-Should have been a bigger hit
9. Overjoyed (10/10)-One of Stevie's best ballads, in the same vein as "Lately"
10. It's Wrong (Apartheid) (20/10)-a great way to end the album, and the album's best song.

This is Stevie Wonder, so you know that its good. "Overjoyed" is my favorite track on the album, but a few of the tracks do sound pretty dated.

Since, I haven't seen anyone else comment on this, I thought I would add a few words about the album art and inserts. The rocks and the disk on the cover are embossed, as well as the leaves on the back. Cooool. Stevie Wonder wants you to FEEL the leaves in his hands.

There is an insert including all the lyrics, but it also includes a very far out dialogue between a character called "Songlife" and a character referred to as either the cynical or sarcastic one, which incorporates all the names of the tracks, (I'm guessing was written by Stevie Wonder?). Anyway, the insert has some wonderful pics of Stevie that make me smile. Well worth it to have on vinyl to look over all this neato stuff inside while you listen.

Being a long time admirerer of Stevie Wonder and his music and having listened to this album many,many,many times yet never bothered to review it. The first thing I want to say is it took Stevie several years to complete this album (he released Original Musiquarium I and The Woman In Red: Selections From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack during the wait) and considering this syndrome had become a very common with Stevie during the mid to late 70's expectations were very mixed. Interestingly enough when this recording dropped in 1985 Stevie had already been performing songs from it on SNL a couple years earlier and,fact is it actually sounded a couple years old. The general production of this album does,in fact sound much more in keeping with 1983,which is appropriate considering most of this music actually hailed from that year. Two significant downside to that were two musical qualities that were more typical of it's release year:the use of a then sound flattening DDD production and a somewhat overuse of synclavier and digital keyboards. In this case it kind of flattens out a lot of the music,and it's most noticable on the funkier songs here such as "Spiritual Walkers",apparently about Jehovah's Witnessess and "I Love You Too Much" which actually,aside from some typically beautiful melodic major/minor chord refrains is pretty clipped and electronic sound anyway. As far as the rhythm is concerned "Part Time Lover" is very much classic Holland/Dozier/Holland Motown arrangement with an old time "cheatin' heart" type blues lyric.That combination had been done in the past and actually it worked pretty well in the 80's even if,again the sound was missing a certain spunk due to the instrumental alterations. "Whereabouts" is actually a very good ballad,not that different from "Overjoyed" in the way it gives Stevie an opportunity to excersise his melodically jazzy songwriting style and trademark feel for chord progressions that made his type of soul/funk so distinctive. The instrumentation on "Stranger On The Shore Of Love" boarders on corny but the song is wonderfully constructed. Done in the instrumental style of using clavinets,live drumming,ARP's along with plenty of echos and reverbs it would've been a sure fire classic. "Never In Your Sun" is a place where the electronic flavor of the album works wonderfully,especially with the percussive use of the drum machines. The same goes for "Go Home",especially with Larry Gitten's echoed trumpet after the refrain and it's one of the earliest songs I knew from this album. "Land Of La La" is actually an attempt at a fairly straight ahead new wave song but,at the same time Stevie's emotionally involved vocal style contrasts very heavily with the often chilly style of 80's new wave/synth pop and even though it doesn't work in every way it could've been a lot worse than it was. "It's Wrong (Aparteid)",outside it's "afro-electric" sound is a potent reminder of Stevie's main activities of the time;performing for USA/Africa related charity events and protesting against aparteid in South Africa. His humanitarianism,also linked to his mistrust of President Reagen (and for proper reasons). So while the follow up album Characters has a stronger sound in many ways than this and doesn't suffer quite as bad from the heavily dated electronics as this one does there is,as with almost every Stevie Wonder album a lot here to admire and respect.

Like most Stevie albums, this one took me a few listens before it grew on me. But it was well worth it. Spiritual Walkers is worth the price by itself!!

This record is my favorite Stevie Wonder offering of all time. I enjoy everything this unmistakable genius is responsible for, but In Square Circle is the album I like best.

I first heard it when I was around six years old, and it had me at the opening bars of "Part-Time Lover." I'd already heard that song and "Overjoyed" on the radio when my parents got the album. But, I wasn't surprised that all the other songs held up brilliantly against those two and the third single, "Go Home." It's clear that Stevie was determined to continue being himself in close step with the time, without feeling the slightest need to produce another "I Just Called to Say I Love You." The man's obviously got clearer vision than most people with two good eyes.

I'm guessing that Stevie relied heavily upon the Yamaha DX7 and Synclavier II synthesizers (the other also used for most of the sequencing) for the majority of the record. He only utilized his acoustic piano on two of the album's gorgeous ballads, "Whereabouts" and the much-underrated, underexposed "Overjoyed." But, that's not a complaint; I grew up during the 80's, and Stevie's music is one of the reasons I enjoy the sounds made by synthesizers and drum machines.

Interestingly, his Academy Award acceptance speech for "I Just Called to Say I Love You" (in which he expressed his support of Nelson Mandela) led to his music being banned from South Africa. It's only a nice coincidence that the closing cut on this record is a most adept and direct critique of South Africa's policy of Apartheid, simply saying, "It's Wrong!" Whatever the reason, the presence of this song only adds to the record and its topical significance. The same can be said for Stevie's reflection on Evangelists ("Spiritual Walkers") and people seeking greener pastures ("Land of La La").

Additional reflections: Possibly my first taste of the material on this record (even before hearing "Part-Time Lover") may have been hearing "Land of La La" as a background song during a local cable ad. Years later, I discovered that the version of "It's Wrong" I'd always heard wasn't a full-length version (I imagine it was shortened to accommodate the 45-minute vinyl edition). In between, I remember fantasizing that Stevie was singing "Spiritual Walkers" during a shoe commercial. HA!!

In 1985 Stevie Wonder came back with his first studio album in 5 years to most fans excitement. Wonder had taken the 80's by storm and scored more hits then ever but his creativity had subsided to give room for pure Pop instead of Soul. Considering that this album came out in 1985 it's not that strange that some of the songs rely on synthesizers and drum machines which sound rather dated today but "In Square Circle" is considerable better then the soundtrack album he made two years ealier for the film "The Woman In Red" and some of the songs here are simply outstanding. Here you find the catchy uptempo "Part Time Lover" a huge hit that topped the billboard charts and is one of his alltime best. For alot of people this was probably the first exposure to Stevie Wonder's greatness. If you listen closely to the end of the verse, you can hear Luther Vandross's humming. Second song "I Love You Too Much" is another great number, a love song where Wondeer prove he still got it. Other good songs are the South African influnced "It's Wrong (Apartheid)" with African chants and drums which deal about the obvious thing stated in the title. A brilliant ballad called "Overjoyed" that could have been released today probably takes the price as the best song. It's about finding that special one and to feel "Overjoyed" by that experience and hoping that the other person feel the same about you. "Wherabouts" may not have the catchyness but it's lyrics are wonderful about a man trying to capture the moments in the past where everything was working fine for him with love and happyness. Two funky numbers with "Go Home" that was a #10 hit and good for the dancefloor and "Land of La la" which probably got a double meanming when it talks about finding fame and success in LA and then sings land of La LA in the hook which stand for something else. The last three songs, "Strangers in the Shore Of Love", "Never In The Sun" are quite forgettable midtempo/lovesongs while "Spiriual Walkers" is a synthesizer friendly pop song. As a whole, "In Square Circle" is a good enough purchase with plenty of memorable songs. It's the last good album from Stevie Wonder. In particular "Overjoyed", "I Love You Too Much" and "Wherabouts" are hidden gems that proved that Wonder still had it. There isn't that much more to say other then if you like most of his music you're gonna like this one aswell even if it's not among his better albums.