15 votes

~music Listening Club 15 - Songs in the Key of Life

Posted by Whom
Tags: listening club, recurring.weekly

It's week 15, and time for another classic record discussion: Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder!

Songs in the Key of Life is the eighteenth album by American recording artist Stevie Wonder, released on September 28, 1976, by Motown Records, through its division Tamla Records. It was the culmination of his "classic period" albums. The album was recorded primarily at Crystal Sound studio in Hollywood, with some sessions recorded at the Record Plant in Hollywood, the Record Plant in Sausalito, and The Hit Factory in New York City. Final mixing was performed at Crystal Sound.

An ambitious double LP with a four-song bonus EP, Songs in the Key of Life became the best-selling and most critically acclaimed album of Wonder's career. In 2003, it was ranked number 57 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2005, it was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, which deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the artist, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Songs in the Key of Life! Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and comment at any point in the week!

If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.

Don't forget to nominate and vote for next week's obscure record in response to this comment!

11 comments

  1. [3]
    Whom
    Link
    Please reply to this comment with all nominations for week 16 of the listening club then vote on submissions you would like to see chosen. Votes and nominations will still count until minutes...

    Please reply to this comment with all nominations for week 16 of the listening club then vote on submissions you would like to see chosen. Votes and nominations will still count until minutes before the eighth week's thread is posted.

    Feel free to "sell" your nominated record in your comment. By the nature of obscure nominations, there probably won't be many others who are familiar with what you mention. Tell us why you think we should hear it, if you'd like! If your record is picked, this will be included in the OP of the next listening club.

    Please make sure your record includes a freely available stream or download. Probably your best bet is asking yourself "is this on Spotify or YouTube?" Other platforms work too, but I doubt too many winning nominations would be DatPiff exclusives.

    Remember: Your record should not be certified Gold or higher by the RIAA. Here you can check the certification status of your nomination, if you're unsure.

    1 vote
    1. arghdos
      Link Parent
      Black Rennaisance -- Body, Mind and Spirit What we have here is a masterpiece of a spiritual jazz album from Henry Whittaker (who is most-well known for his work with Roy Ayer's Ubiquity)....

      Black Rennaisance -- Body, Mind and Spirit

      What we have here is a masterpiece of a spiritual jazz album from Henry Whittaker (who is most-well known for his work with Roy Ayer's Ubiquity). Combining call and response styles of Sun Ra (or RRK), modal jazz of Coltrane, and some Herbie space jams into a funky, sinuous groove.

      "Black Renaissance is undoubtedly one of my all time favourite tunes, up there with Sun Ra's 'Sleeping Beauty' and Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme'."
      - Gilles Peterson, BBC Radio 1, London 2002.

      Harry Whitaker is a piano player, producer and arranger who on MLK day 1976, at the age of 26, recorded Black Renaissance “Body, Mind, and Spirit,” a holy grail amongst collectors of soul-jazz and rare groove. So rare, it’s virtually a myth to many collectors and music aficionados.

      Made up of two long tracks that periodically build and release for forty minutes over two sides of an LP it’s an improvised masterpiece combining Afrocentric spiritual soul, jazz, poetry, amazing solos, a tasty bass line or two and more than a fair share of funky beats. It’s also one of the earliest albums to feature rapping. “I called the project Black Renaissance because that is what I wanted to see happen – especially in music.”

      Given its rarity, when asked if he was surprised that people knew about the album Whitaker jokes “I’ve told enough people about it over the years! Now they can actually hear it. It was a record before it’s time.”

      Harry Whitaker cut his teeth on the best of the Roy Ayers Ubiquity releases (including playing keys on “We Live In Brooklyn Baby” and co-producing the “Coffy” OST) on and making a living working closely with Roberta Flack – as her musical director, even playing on her big Eugene McDaniels’ written hit “I Feel Like Makin’ Love.” Black Renaissance “Body, Mind, and Spirit,” was his first attempt at a project where he wrote and composed the music and played keys on all tracks.

      This album features Woody Shaw, Azar Lawrence, Buster Williams, Billy Hart and Mtume amongst others. CD liner notes (and album insert) explain how this album almost never saw light of day.

      Above description from Ubiquity

      3 votes
    2. helbonikster
      Link Parent
      I’d like to nominate Circles Around the Sun - Interludes for the Dead. Back in 2015, Neal Casal (Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Chris Robinson Brotherhood), was asked to put together a band to record...

      I’d like to nominate Circles Around the Sun - Interludes for the Dead.

      Back in 2015, Neal Casal (Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Chris Robinson Brotherhood), was asked to put together a band to record music for the sole purpose of being played between sets as the “house music” during the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well 50th anniversary shows in San Francisco & Chicago.

      This is an instrumental album with most songs being jams based on riffs from Dead songs. My personal favorite track on the album is Gilbert’s Groove, which loosely interweaves the central riff from Shakedown Street. If you like The Dead, or just jammy music in general, then you will probably like this.

      Instead of just being a one-off, they decided to stick around and just released a new album. I’ve only given the new album a quick listen, so I don’t really have an opinion on it yet. I hope you will consider Interludes for the Dead for the obscure album of the week as I think it deserves more recognition than its gotten.

      2 votes
  2. Whom
    Link
    Not much to say this time around. I like the album, it's a bit bloated but is still a nice listen and will probably be my background music for Tabletop Sim for a while.

    Not much to say this time around. I like the album, it's a bit bloated but is still a nice listen and will probably be my background music for Tabletop Sim for a while.

    1 vote
  3. [7]
    cfabbro
    Link
    Songs in the Key of Life instead of I Was Made To Love Her, For Once In My Life, My Cherie Amour, Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Talking Book or Innervisions? ಠ_ಠ Stevie Wonder is absolutely fantastic...

    Songs in the Key of Life instead of I Was Made To Love Her, For Once In My Life, My Cherie Amour, Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Talking Book or Innervisions? ಠ_ಠ

    Stevie Wonder is absolutely fantastic and probably my second favorite artist of all time (after Freddie Mercury/Queen). But I do think Songs in the Key of Life is a significantly weaker album overall than most of his previous ones. There is no denying Sir Duke, I Wish and Isn't She Lovely are all time classics, and I thoroughly enjoy some of the other tracks as well (especially Another Star and Saturn, which are tremendously underrated), but overall the tracks don't really hit me nearly as hard as the majority of the song on his previous albums and a lot feel like flat out filler tracks.

    IMO all the albums I mentioned above are way way stronger... and I even feel like his early 60s albums, when his voice was still that of a boy instead of a man, are significantly more stacked with hits. I dunno though, maybe that's just me?

    1. [5]
      Whom
      Link Parent
      That's a hell of a hot take you have there! For the purposes of classic discussions, the only real options in his discography were this and Innervisions, I don't think anything else hits that...

      That's a hell of a hot take you have there! For the purposes of classic discussions, the only real options in his discography were this and Innervisions, I don't think anything else hits that level of acclaim and continued popularity, especially with nerds.

      Not sure how I feel myself, though, I don't have as much experience with Stevie Wonder as I really should by now. The only influence my opinion of the quality of these records had this time around was in passing up What's Going On for a soul week. I would've liked to go for Pieces of a Man, but that's a bit of a stretch for the first pick in the genre.

      2 votes
      2. [3]
        cfabbro
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Oh, do the classic album discussions have a particular date range limitation or something? I didn't realize that... so sorry for the ಠ_ಠ. ;) Even with a restriction, Innervisions still would have...

        Oh, do the classic album discussions have a particular date range limitation or something? I didn't realize that... so sorry for the ಠ_ಠ. ;)

        Even with a restriction, Innervisions still would have been my personal choice though. But hey, let's be honest... any Stevie Wonder is good Stevie Wonder, so we're all good! :P

        p.s. What's Going On is an absolutely killer album too. At some point I would definitely be down for discussing that or any other Marvin Gaye album, really. Pieces of a Man and Gil Scott-Heron I am actually not familiar with though... so I will have to check him out!

        1. [2]
          Whom
          Link Parent
          Oh, by that I just meant that I'm not necessarily looking for albums that I think are of the highest quality, though since I am picking them myself I'm going to tend toward that when other factors...

          Oh, by that I just meant that I'm not necessarily looking for albums that I think are of the highest quality, though since I am picking them myself I'm going to tend toward that when other factors are equal. Since I'm mostly going by acclaim within a certain space or genre, the two Stevie Wonder albums that stand out enough in influence and popular opinion to be the first representative of soul music. Like, if you pick out any random "greatest albums of all time" list, the highest spot occupied by one of his records would either be Songs in the Key of Life or Innervisions in the vast majority of cases. As for why I chose from those two what I did...I just personally wanted to listen to it more, and it's more well-regarded in the places on the internet I hang out.

          What's Going On is cool and will probably be next up whenever it looks like we could fit another soul album in. I don't like it quite as much as other possible picks or even Marvin Gaye's other material (particularly I Want You, I'm a sucker for the added funkiness), so I pushed it back a little.

          And I hope you like Gil Scott-Heron's work! I sorta ended up listening to him just tracing back influences on hip hop, so I'm curious what he sounds like when coming from any other perspective.

          2 votes
          1. cfabbro
            (edited )
            Link Parent
            Haha fair enough. And I fully admit I might be in the minority regarding Songs in the Key of Life, especially since my listening background for Stevie is mostly from my love of Motown, so perhaps...

            As for why I chose from those two what I did...I just personally wanted to listen to it more, and it's more well-regarded in the places on the internet I hang out.

            Haha fair enough. And I fully admit I might be in the minority regarding Songs in the Key of Life, especially since my listening background for Stevie is mostly from my love of Motown, so perhaps that's why I tend to enjoy his much earlier work than the latter stuff. Although thanks to some users here (particularly @arghdos and @EightRoundsRapid) I am definitely coming to appreciate Funk a heck of a lot more than I used to.

            2 votes
    2. arghdos
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I tend to put my peak Stevie at Innervisions or Fulfillingness', but I'm a big fan of Songs as well (btw: you missed Have a Talk with God & Black Man as standout tracks, and Contusion is a rare...

      I tend to put my peak Stevie at Innervisions or Fulfillingness', but I'm a big fan of Songs as well (btw: you missed Have a Talk with God & Black Man as standout tracks, and Contusion is a rare bird where Stevie went full jazz-fusion). Reading your comment below I kinda get where you're coming from (Motown over funk), but that's not the way my brain operates :p

      1 vote