OK so after hearing Songs in the key of Life, I was blown away!!! This is going to be my next purchase. It sounded fresh by todays standards. I was also super experimental, which I liked...thoughhe Sir Duke samples scared me

I am also thinking of picking up Innervisions.

What else should I consider checking out? Does he do all the music himself? I know practically nothing about him. I have a GH CD and that's it.

Who?

Is he related to Pronce?

heheh, nice going Funkenstein

I'll help you out. Stevie is like Prince in that he generally writes, arranges and produces almost all his own material and often plays all or most of the instruments on his recordings as well. In fact he was one of the first popular musicians to regularly record as a one-man-band.

Innervisions is definitely a good next pick as that's actually often considered his best album. His other "prime" albums if you ask most of his fans are Talking book, Music of My Mind, and Fulfillingness' First Finale. Prior to the album Where I'm Coming From in 1971(a great album but usually not seen as the real start of his prime, even though I think it's great) , he didn't have complete creative control of his albums, but even from his earliest days as a child star in Motown in the 60s he was still writing some of his own material and playing some of his own instruments, and increasingly wrote and played more and more of his own stuff as well as material for other Motown artists over the course of the 60s. Most of his stuff prior to gaining complete creative control is more conventional Motown R&B but most of it is still good and much of it is great. After the album Hotter Than July in 1980 is when most people think he began to fall off as he relied too heavily on synthesizers and became more sappy and less imaginative. Even so there's still some good to great stuff after 1980 as well.

Also like Prince, Stevie's recorded an incredibly huge amount of unreleased stuff, and in fact he may even surpass prince in that regard.

I'm going to see him in October.

jacktheimprovident said:

Co-sign. These are essential:

Where I'm Coming From (1971)
Music of My Mind (1972)
Talking Book (1972)
Innervisions (1973)
Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974)
Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (1979)
Hotter Than July (1980)

For Once in My Life is probably my favorite album of his from the '60s. Characters is definitely the best album post-1980. Congratulations, you have a great journey ahead of you! IMO, Stevie Wonder is the greatest solo artist of all time.

DANGEROUSx said:

ME TOO!!!

finally someones playing NZ

Good topic. I've been curious to give Mr. Wonder a try for some time now, but I have this odd habit to steer away from artist who have such remarkable acclaim, accolades and careers (ironic being that I'm on a site dedicated to Prince, eh).

Finished the first disc of Songs In The Key Of Life last night, and the praise surrounding it is much-deserved. It was cool to realize I've heard many of the songs prior in promotional ads, samples, etc; something that made the album quite acquainted.

Now I have to perform the task of sifting through the rest of his sprawling library for other goodies.

AlexdeParis said:

CO-SIGN to this post. I enjoyed his last album "A time to love" too but these are essential.

It's nice to hear people discovering Stevie, it give me hope for the future, seriously.

Slave2daGroove said:

Pretty much, everything but Conversation Peace. I despise that album. I've listened to it on several occasions, but it's just horrible.

jonylawson said:

Ooh, you're going too? Yeah no one ever comes here.

superspaceboy said:

SITKOL is an amazing album....so creative,so deep,so inspired.Stevie took two years recording this album and created a stunning masterpiece.The songs take you on a journey through "life".

Slave2daGroove said:

For real!

Key Of Life is one of those seminal albums - I wore the groove out of that record.

superspaceboy said: