What does it sound like?:
A surprise! An unexpected delight! Four songs recorded for SITKOL but left on the shelf, refreshed by the original team and released for its 60th birthday. A tour will follow, kicking off at Batley Working Mens’ Club right there in the U of K!
The EP kicks off with what sounds like a Stereolab outtake, heavy on the Casio VL-Tone, which continues a little awkwardly under an absolute gold-dusted Wonder melody. The songs get stronger, if possible, with the next three tracks. “I Can See The Sun In Late December” is one of the loveliest damn things he ever wrote. This lay on the shelf for sixty years? What the actual?
Added to the original release, and its bonus “A Somethings’ Extra” EP, it’s clear that there was enough for a triple album, with no dip in quality from beginning to end. What a time to be alive.
What does it all *mean*?
It’s time to ease into the disco pants and strut whatever stuff you have left.
Goes well with…
Whatever you’re doing.
Release Date:
Ooh, today?
Might suit people who like…
Getting the funk out of their faces. Bangin’ tewns.
It’s not Batley, but it is somewhere in the UK. Check the listings in the inkies.
Certainly not BWMC as it was pulled down many years ago.
‘appen as like.
Probably why they changed the venue.
Got my ticket for the Dublin show (three times as much as I’ve ever paid for any gig, but this will be something – hearing one of my favourite albums performed – and it coincides with a landmark birthday for me too).
Should I listen to the songs on the E.P. or should I wait ‘til the show to see if they are included..?
Listen now! Then you can applaud knowingly when he starts to play them live and join in with the chorus.
Even better when you know them and hardly anyone esle does. Perhaps even stand in acknowledgment at their appearance.
Turn and face the audience, crying “I had this on vinyl!”
Or printed on a t-shirt.
Or a sandwich board.
50th. Clue on the cover. 😉
We all saw that but, hey, he’s just come back so didn’t want to embarass him…
I like to encourage engagement.
Okaaaaay. Takes deep breath. Stevie Wonder is possibly the most overrated superstar there is. Talking Book – coupla good tracks. Innervisions even a few good tracks. But the rot starts to set in with this album and the whole thing comes tumbling down with that plants thingo.
Fey, vapid, wan, directionless apart from the occasional classic that highlights what could have been.
Oh, come on, Junes, tell us what you really think! Not like you to hold back …
I was pondering this the other day. I have 5 of his albums – coupla early comps then TB, IV and FFF and was thinking it’s pretty slim pickings. Clearly OOAA but that’s mine. .
It’s the robust exchange of opinions that makes the Afterword such a lively online community.
occasionally
Whilst Junior sticks his head above the parapet, I crouch on the floor behind him whispering “You the man”.
It’s a harsh appraisal, but not without truth. Even his 1970’s “classics” mix gloopy dross with the (usually) 2-3 standout tracks per album. Between Talking Book (1971) and Hotter Than July (1980) there are about a dozen stand out tracks, to which I’d add a set of earlier singles, Ma Cherie Amour, For Once In My Life and maybe a couple more, and you’d have a decent double album.
I am also crouching on the floor, so to speak.
Love a few of the well known singles, but whenever I play an album it seems to tip into schmaltzy gloop pretty quickly
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
Nowt wrong with a bit of schmaltzy gloop, but too much can have a deleterious effect on the digestion.
At your age, you should be grateful.
I love the ‘plants thing’, it’s ambient stoner synth exotica. Ripe for rediscovery I think. It’s got Send One Your Love on it, come on!
For sure the criticisms that you have are valid, he does mostly fall back on syrupy sentiment, but he’s good at it.
Characters is a good album, as is In Square Circle. If you don’t mind synth-heavy stuff, of course.
In terms of the man himself, I find him very off putting, he’s a bit like a cult leader on stage.
If you asked me I would say that I loved that album but I dug it out a few weeks ago, played the whole thing for the first time in quite a few years and was surprised by how patchy it was. There is quite a bit of filler. I reckon that between the two LPs and the EP there is an excellent single album.
Agree, after the single album perfection of Talking Book , Innervisions, and Fulfillingness’ First Finale, I think it would’ve been better condensed
(note: FFF is “nearly” perfection, but not quite)
For all the haterz:
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22174-songs-in-the-key-of-life/
That’s “H8TRZ” Tig. Get hip to the lingo, daddy-o!
Wupes. “H8RZ”. My bad.
Lol, “wupes”. What the actual, gramps?
*snfrl*
Wupes. *snrfl*. My bad.
there’s nowt so queer as pitchfolk
For over a year I used to hear this album on an eight track in the car driven by a mate who gave me a lift to uni.
I’ve played recently all those other albums I referenced but not this one. But today I will pay it the respect of giving it another listen.
Mark and Dave were discussing how terribly bad the album cover was. There’s something obvious to say here, but I won’t say it …
Stevie painted it himself, you heartless bastard.
up !
I like the cover of SITKOL. It’s 1976’s biggest album, so it should look like 1976. And it certainly does. What is that? Burnt Orange? Terracotta? Ochre? Whatever it is, it’s very 1976.
I want mid 70s albums to look like mid 70s albums. They should look like SITKOL, Hotel California, Blue For You, How Dare You! Earth Wind & Fire’s Greatest Hits and that Carpenters singles collection. I don’t want any of that black and white Patti Smith nonsense.
The only danger with that is that you end up with the Orleans Waking and Dreaming album cover.
ELO won this I think. They turned their logo into a frickin’ spaceship! And then (slightly less successfully) into a magic lamp with an Arab gent looking intently into it!
While we’re on the subject of heads and parapets…. I have never listened to a single Stevie Wonder album, and I don’t think I ever will. I am 65 years old.
Nor have I, a good compilation would probably do for me. Any recommendations?
The 38-track double-CD Definitive Collection from 2002 contains everything you are ever likely to want to hear, sold in huge quantities, and is now available from your local charity shop for a quid.
For a real album I’d go Innervisions
Seconded. Perhaps it helped, quality control-wise, that it was made with the two fellas from Tonto’s Expanding Head Band.
Lest we forget, that album has just turned 53 (Wonder was 23 when it – his 16th album – was released) and he is still touring. He’s (still) younger than you think.
Does that mean you have listened to SITKOL as it’s a double?
*Tips hat*
The Afterword; music and pedantry.
The Secret Life of Plants
AI: Secret Life Of Pants
I never liked the EP much. I didn’t think it counted. The double vinyl is ace. OK, Isn’t She Lovely makes my teeth fall out but it is difficult to bemoan such ecstatic joy at fatherhood. As for this EP. I rate it as highly as the 1976 one.
The EP has a couple of my favourite SITKOL songs on it. It’s all opinions.
Totally agree with you on Isn’t She Lovely.
As a matter of interest, which two?
I like all four but particularly Saturn and Easy Going Evening.
Thanks.
Dug out my double vinyl yesterday in honour of this thread and the EP seems to have disappeared. Maybe I stored it somewhere else?
Do keep us up to speed, dai.
Is it in the freezer?
No it’s vinyl not a CD
Misfiled in another Stevie record or adjoining artist?
It’ll be in the last place you look. What are the chances, etc?
I’ll have a look in my wife’s handbag.
Here’s the update the whole Afterword has been waiting for. I found it! It was tucked into the sleeve, don’t know how I missed it. Stevie could have found it! Another senior moment
Tucked inside the sleeve?!?! Cuh! That’s a weight off my mind.
Stevie could have found it!
Where did you last see it?
I am concerned that he keeps CDs in the freezer.
Perhaps he’s run out of green felt tip pens.
Any fool knows a frozen CD sounds better
Let it go …
ISWYDT
IDSWHDT. AFAF?
Note to our older readers: Let It Go is from the popular Disney animated move “Frozen”.
Toronto
I am one of the doubters who thinks Stevie can be rather uneven.
I saw him at Roskilde a few years back and there did seem to be rather a lot of crowd singalongs and other distractions.
But then he’d play something like a stunning version of Superstition which restored my faith.
He finished the concert with a truly stunning version of Another Star. Here he is playing it at Glastonbury.
When he gets it right, he hits the jackpot.
For most of his career Stevie has had total control. I would argue to the detriment. Totally indulgent. He needed a producer. The frustrating thing is that if he needs to come up with something he will produce an absolute banger.
Good job he recovered from this patchy, mediocre album to make the masterpiece “I Just Called to Say I Love You”
Yep, agreed – if it’s good enough for John Prine & The Secret Sisters, it’s good enough for me!
Brilliant, isn’t it?
He has had that control because he fought for it. By the time the 70s came around he wasn’t happy with how Motown was presenting and packaging his music. Look at the covers to the My Cherie Amour and Signed Sealed and Delivered albums to see what I mean. So yes, total control and great success has come with indulgence. It always does. I could make exactly the same point about Prince or Kate Bush to name two. But it was his control freakery that made those great records, at least for a while.
I’m sticking my head above the parapet to say that I’m all in on Stevie Wonder. The fact that I’m the Afterword’s biggest Queen fan means that it I’m probably not helping much. It probably needs one of you NME boys to come out swinging for him.
You can still have total control but elect to collaborate with a producer.