350. Stevie Wonder, "Music of My Mind"

 

Here we have another third rail artist, Stevie Wonder, and in this case, unlike some other third rail artists I could name, it's richly deserved.  I don't think it's hyperbole or overstatement to say that Stevie Wonder is one of the most prodigiously talented, gifted, and enjoyable American artists to ever perform.  No serious music fan would argue with that.

That said, this album - released in 1972, his FOURTEENTH album - is more of a prelude than a destination.  By that, I mean that in this album, which is widely considered the first album of his golden phase, the rest of which we will certainly be seeing later, you can hear the musical ideas that will later become fully realized in later albums.  Take a song like "Girl Blue," with its lilting, descending melody of a kind that will show later in much better-recognized songs.  And the harmonica work in "Sweet Little Girl" will undoubtedly remind you of little songs like "Isn't She Lovely."

But here's the thing: even Stevie Wonder's sketchpads are better than most people's finished masterpieces.  This is a lovely, joyful album, and it's truly a pleasure to listen to.  But you listen to it knowing what's coming down the road.  And what's coming is really the amazing part.

So we're at 350 which means we've done 150 albums!  Wow.  There have been some hits and some misses, but I'm guessing from this point on it's gonna be pretty much all or mostly all good stuff.  We still haven't seen any Beatles, which means that every Beatles album is coming up.  And God, I'm going to have to listen to so much Dylan I bet.  Anyway, I peeked and Monday's a good one.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yeah.

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