Music of My Mind by Stevie Wonder

Quite possibly what could be called the beginning of Stevie Wonder's "classic period", Music of My Mind is the first time his audience hears him fully experiment with the instrumentation of his records by using the rather sparse and sporadic synthesizer on every track. Though full creative control over his records was given to Wonder on his previous album, Where I'm Coming From, this is the first time we hear Stevie breakaway from the conventional Motown sound provided by The Funk Brothers (who were session musicians whom provided the backing for most of the Motown recordings from 1959-1972). As usual with Stevie Wonder albums though, we get a healthy mix of both optimistic upbeat songs (such as "I Love Every Little Thing About You") and heartbreaking love stories ("Girl Blue" and "Superwoman" which are both about females who can't seem to put their rather indepedent mindsets behind themselves to have successful relationships). We hear the additional electric guitar backing from Buzz Feiten on the second half of "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)" which acts as a sequel to "I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer" that was on Where I'm Coming From and it's likely to be the album's highest point in eyes and ears of it's listeners. Almost remarkably, Wonder manages to put this album together with little additional input outside of co-writing credits to Syreeta and Yvonne Wright, Art Baron's tamborine playing on funk driven "Love Having You Around", and of course Feiten's guitar as mentioned earlier. Throughout the album we hear Stevie expound upon the highs and lows of romantic relationships which is much like a emotional rollercoaster, one minute he's "Happier than the Morning Sun" and the next minute he's "left alone to suffer" on "Seems So Long" and is searching for a new love chronicled clearly on church choir infused "Keep On Running". The finale testament of the album is not about love at all though, rather it's a question of "Evil"'s placement in the world. Stevie's voice soars higher and higher as the track builds and the album comes to a quite epic halt. ℗ 2014 Motown Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.