You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - "Songs in the Key of Life" – Stevie Wonder

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Songs in the Key of Life stands apart, even next to the other four albums in Stevie Wonder's classic period. It resulted in the most hit singles: "I Wish", "Sir Duke", "As" and "Another Star". Chris Molanphy of the Hit Parade podcast leads us through this album's incredible charts story. Not only did it produce FOUR singles, but it inspired two other chart-topping hits: Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" and Will Smith's "Wild Wild West".Plus — Peter and Adam nerd out on the keys, dissecting every track to highlight the musical complexity that makes Songs in the Key of Life a favorite among jazz musicians. You may have heard Songs in the Key of Life ... possibly many times. But you've never heard it quite like this!Start your free Open Studio trial for ALLLLL your jazz lesson needs: https://osjazz.link/yhi   00:00 - Intro Jam: "As"02:13 - The Chart Story Behind SITKOL05:40 - The Long Wait for Songs in the Key of Life12:45 - "Love's In Need of Love Today"19:40 - Comparing Stevie to Prince20:30 - "I Wish"24:00 - The Ultimate Crossover Hitmaker27:25 - "Sir Duke"32:30 - Making Jazz Fun37:25 - "Passtime Paradise"40:00 - Stevie the Synth Innovator43:50 - How Stevie Commanded the Charts46:40 - How Was This Track Not a Hit Single?52:00 - This Hit Was NOT On an Album56:00 - The SITKOL Jazz Standard1:00:30 - "Another Star"1:04:05 - "As"1:15:00 - How SITKOL Singles Broke Ground1:22:20 - Our Favorite SITKOL Tracks1:25:35 - The Best Moments on SITKOL1:29:50 - Bespoke Spotify Playlists1:32:45 - What to Listen to Next1:35:20 - Quibble Bits1:37:50 - How "Snobby" is This Record?1:40:50 - Is it Better than Kind of Blue?1:42:40 - Packaging Gets a 10/101:45:00 - Outro: "As"

Hey, Peter. What's up? Today we're talking about Stevie Wonder's Immortal songs in the Key of Life album. We're talking specifically about the four singles that were released. Two of them got to be number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Can you name all four singles? I think so. I mean, definitely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish. Great call. Three to go. Oh, three to go. Sir Duke. Well done, Pete. Two to go.

Okay, two more. Now it's getting a little. Oh. Yeah, yeah. Another star. great song. You got one more single. What do you think was one of the singles? One of the hits. So that's got to be

you would think. Isn't she lovely? A million father-daughter dances. Not a single, not a hit. Really? Yeah. What else you got? Oh, maybe. Somersoft, perhaps the best song on the album. Very popular with musicians. Not a single, not a hit. Okay, hit. Got to get back on hits. Okay, so it's got to be...

If it's magic. Unbelievable. Not a single. Not a hit. Well, it's a hit for me. Well, let me hip you to some real magic here. How about this? Oh, that one's good, too. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to The You'll Hear It Podcast. Music, Explored. Explored, brought you today by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJadogadogad. Your jazz lesson needs. He's back. No, he never left. Peter, it's another big day.

I know you're shocked to hear that. You know, we're just going to assume that it's always a big day. We're living a big life. We're living a big life. It does seem like it's getting bigger and bigger. And with our guest today, for sure, it's going to... We're going to chop the charts today.

I can tell you that. We're going to try to because we are listening to, I mean, one of... I'm not even going to say one of. It's our all-time favorite album. Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life. I don't know. It's my all-time favorite album. You just set the bar high.

I don't want to speak for you. I love this album. Not only that, but we've got a very special guest from the hit parade. podcast. The great Chris Milanfi is here. Chris, thank you for joining us. Thank you. We are so excited to talk to you today about Stevie Wonder and about your expertise with this, which is about how these things have charted when they've been released and how they've done even since. And yeah, I'm stoked to listen to this music and talk to you guys about it. Yeah, me too. Yeah, thanks for being here,

Chris. Yeah, well, and when you guys gave me the selection of albums and I saw songs in the Key of Life was on the list. First of all, it's a great album. And second of all, it's like a great chart album because there are so many superlatives around it, the way it charted and what a big hit it was. So, yeah, we can get into all of that. Yeah, and I'm really excited because, you know, we talk about the singles, we talk about, you know, the charts and stuff.

But I think we kind of gloss over it a little bit in pursuit sometimes of like, which is the track that Herbie played on? That's my number one. And we throw around like personal charts and musicians charts and maybe even jazz pianist charts, turns out that's not the same as the general populations chart. So I'm really excited to learn more about that. And really even just like what that means, you know, chart topping billboard, we throw

around these terms. And in fact, I've been in the recording academy for many years now and I get a huge, still get a huge billboard magazine every month or so to my house. And I'm like, what is this exactly? And it just sits there awaiting my perusal. I think Chris might encourage you to peruse a little more because there's some interesting stuff going on. Indeed.

No, if you haven't checked that. You have to be a nerd for this kind of thing. You know, certain people are wired for this, and I am one of those people. Well, pre-requisite is done right here, I can tell you. Well, before we get into the music, let's get a little background here. So this double album released in 1976 was in that string of what people often refer to as Stevie's classic period from music of my mind through songs in the Key of Life. you want to be a little annoyed with something Stevie started working on this album

when he was 24 years old and recorded it God damn it I know right when he was 25 What a genius for Brian out loud A genius He'd already recorded like

12 albums before this Right and it's the last in that string of five great albums Right I mean But we forget how young he was during this time He was in his early 20s making all of this music And now his mid-20s making his masterpiece I think when you do start that early

everything like your his mid-20s is like mid-30s for most other. I mean, really, in terms of sets and reps, number of albums, number of compositions, tours, performances, all that kind of stuff. And I thought when you said, you want to get really annoyed, I thought you were going to bring up the fact

that many folks were very annoyed because this album was delayed. Yes. And there was a lot of lore around that as well. Yeah, they actually made t-shirts that said, it's coming soon, you know. I think it was, we're almost finished. We're almost finished.

That's right. It was before it was even coming. And by the way, two years. That's all it was. Nowadays, two years is normal. Nothing. I know. You know, Taylor Swift now releases an album a year, but like during the tens, Taylor Swift

released an album every two years like clockwork and nobody thought that was ridiculous. Right. Back then, to wait two years was kind of like, oh, my God, what's taking so long? Yeah, I mean, he rattled off music of my mind, 72, talking book also 72, Intervision 73, and fulfilling this first finale, 74. And then everybody was like, where's our 75? Where's our masterpiece this year? Yeah.

Well, and shall we repeat the Paul Simon Grammy quip? I mean, why did Paul Simon win album of the year for Still Crazy after all these years for 1975? He literally stood up on stage holding the Grammy and said, and I'd like to thank Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album this show. Wasn't it like the main thing, it wasn't it like the first or main thing he said when he stood up to before he even thanked everybody? It was like the little button on his he thanked his producer. And I'd like to thank Stevie Wonder for not releasing now this year because, for those who'd forget. Stevie Wonder, to this day,

a record he still holds. Taylor Swift hasn't beaten this. Nobody's beaten this. He had three album of the year wins in a row. Taylor has had more, but Stevie had three in a row. Nobody's ever pulled that off. Intervisions, fulfilling this first finale,

songs in the Key of Life, back to back to back. Well, and if he would have planned songs a little bit better and done just two regular albums instead of one double album, he could have gone four. Paul wouldn't have won for still crazy.

Yeah. Paul would be in the gutter, somewhere depressed, you know, his whole trajectory would have changed, you know. Well, can we just dig in a little... Paul was fine because he'd won for Bridge Over Trouble Water with Garfunkel, and he was going to win with Graceland a decade later. So he was fine. Right, okay. He's doing okay.

Can we just dig in a little bit into this idea that you were just mentioning, Chris, about like two years was an eternity back then? Like, why is that? Why have things changed? Because, like, I was thinking you're talking about Taylor Swift, Beyonce, um, Kanye, all these like mega artists now, years go in between, you know, we just lost DeAngelo last week. I mean, he was an outlier in terms of decades going between albums.

But, I mean, this idea, like, what was in the water in that early 70s? I mean, even going back to, like, a lot of the jazz records and stuff in the 60s. Coltrane's making, like, three, four, or five albums a year sometimes. But also, not only they make albums every year, at least, they're, like, recording albums in September, and they're coming out in December. You know what I mean? It's like, even though the technology is so much, better and so much easier, should be today.

But what's your thoughts on my Chris? I think in 1965, the Beatles were banging out rubber soul in time for the Christmas market, and they knocked it out in like two weeks, and it was in stores, like, a week or two later. That's what it was like. Because I think, speaking of the Beatles, I often do a before and after with the Beatles.

With Sergeant Pepper, it isn't that Sergeant Pepper was the first concept album. You have Frank Sinatra albums before Sergeant Pepper that were concept albums. It's that Sergeant Pepper changed the record industry's understanding of the commerce behind albums. Because now, for starters,

first of all, Sergeant Pepper had no singles released from it. That was a new concept that you would release an album and not put, take any singles off of it for the American market.

Right. And the album as statement kind of gains currency and then it becomes the core unit of measure of the record industry. Folks may not remember this, but, you know,

in the 50s and early 60s, the single easily outsold the album. And the single was kind of like the core unit of measure of the music business. It's only when starting around Rubber Soul and then gaining traction

with Revolver and Sergeant Pepper that the music business kind of reorganizes itself around the album. And yeah, in the early 60s you might have a band like The Beach Boys or, you know, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles putting out two

or even three or four albums a year because the album is not necessarily a statement back then. And then it becomes Pet Sounds with the Beach Boys is a statement. And the commerce kind of builds around that. And so by the 70s, an album a year, maybe two albums a year, if you're Elton John and

his prolific period, or Carol King and her prolific period, that would, you know, you would still have that album a year cycle. But for Stevie to take two years coming off of all those hits to put together an album, the music business was not set up that way. And I think Stevie, you can even say help change the performance. perception of how long a cycle, a promotional cycle for an album would be. I know you guys talked about Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. Yeah. It took them two years to follow that up with Tusk. It took the Eagles two years, almost three, to follow up Hotel California with the long run. So suddenly all these artists are

taking routinely two and three years. And it's kind of like you can point it as before songs in the Key of Life after Songs in the Key of Life. Right. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I always, it's funny, mentioned the Beatles with that Sergeant Pepper is because, you know, especially starting a talking book, I don't know if this is true, but to me, I hear Stevie saying, listening to Abby Road and saying, I can do

that but better. You know, like, I can make a better version of that. And he starts making these albums that are a little bit more, like less single driven, a little bit more in that vein, using synths and things like that and really takes what the Beatles did and improves on it through this

period, you know, in my opinion. Yeah, and less kind of Motown's soul. I mean, not that he was always really that restricted to that sort of sound and grooves, but even less so more rock stuff, more bluesy, more jet, like more cross genre, kind of just like, what is that? Oh, that's a Stevie record. And then it builds up year after year, you know. Music of my mind. Yeah. Well, think right, think about music of my mind with Jeff Beck, you know, playing on that, for example. And think about him covering the Beatles, we can work it out. And I think that was 71 just before the run that he did with all the albums. And frankly, it's probably the one time

a cover of a Beatles song actually improved upon the Beatles song. So yeah, so Stevie is thinking differently at this time and he's thinking more album. And also in terms of the commerce, he had re-signed. He'd gotten through his little Stevie Wonder period. His first

Motown contract expires. He demands and gets artistic freedom. And that's part of what you're hearing during the five album run is Stevie's artistic freedom. Frankly, you're hearing it even after the five album run because after this he does Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, which is about his free an album.

It may not be a great Stevie Wonder album, but it's a great way. Talk about a concert-topper. That's a chart-topper with jazz musicians, for sure. Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, super interesting. Well, I mean, speaking of playing the music that he wants to play, he starts off his, you know, this two-year wait for this album, and the first track you get is this.

friend here's your friendly announcer I have serious news to pass on to what I'm about to say couldn't mean the world's disaster could change your joy and laughter to teach I still think that this in this run this is the best sounding of the albums in the run for me Like the sound... That's probably accurate. I mean, I just think the recording technology. I mean, you guys were talking about this when you talked about Asia and rumors. How by 76-77, it's kind of like everybody had figured out the recording technology,

and those are just clean-sounding albums. Clean-sounding albums. The low-end is incredibly rich and detailed. Like, when that bass comes in for the first time, it just drops your heart into the pit of your stomach, at least for me because it just feels so big all of a sudden. which we don't get on music of my mind or talking book as much. You know, it's not as full of a sound.

It's not as rich of a sound. Yeah, and I mean, this is definitely a little bit more smoothed out sound in terms of like the way it's EQ, the way it's mastered. I think for sure the recording technology, I mean, we forget about it. We think, oh, the 70s, it was one thing, but things were moving pretty quickly then, even before you got into the 80s with, you know, serious drum machines and all these kind of things that affected the music. But I also think he's out in the West Coast.

I mean, all the music in my mind, talking book, fulfilling. I believe those were all recorded with the same production crew, same studios in New York. This is an L.A. kind of sound. Some of it was recorded at the, actually at the Rumors Studio, right? Record point. But it's, you know, it's, you know, Stevie, his voice, I think, is the thing that's most consistent from the period right before. Well, it's the same period. I was consider this as like a mini different period

from the earlier ones. Almost how there's some kind of like... I don't think you're wrong. Yeah. I do think it stands apart, even though it's part of the five album run, sonically, it stands apart from the other four. For sure.

Which is such a huge part of it. Think about one, just one album previous. Think about fulfilling this first finale. Think about a song like Creepin, for example, which I love. But like, there's a woollyness to the sound of that record. Yeah. It's a fuzzy funk sound on that album.

that I love, by the way. Great. But it's very different than the vibe on songs in the Key of Life. Yeah. And I might be oversimplifying with this new, you know, East Coast to West Coast, but it's definitely... Oh, yeah. Great song. This is more raw, too.

This has like a Herbie's Headhunters vibe. Yeah. Totally. Where songs has more of a rumors Asia vibe. Exactly. And this, I believe, is Stevie on drum. Like, so, yeah, there's definitely Stevie on drums. It's so...

Are we got to do fulfillingness at some point? I know. It's happening. It's going to happen. Fulfillingness is the underrated gem in the run. I totally agree. My theory is it's just so hard to say. People don't recommend it enough.

Yeah, I love that this is sort of like sonically is kind of lives in its own world. Some generations have a little crossover. You know, I don't know, like 77 to like 82 exenials have a, I don't know if you guys know. Anyway. Moving on But the thing too

What are those? I think this idea So I don't Is there any Steve? I don't think there's any Stevie drumming on Songs of the Key of Life actually Like I think that has That's interesting

I never knew that Because his drumming is actually One of the appeals of those first records in the run Yeah I could be totally off And I don't have the You keep talking I'll look here So I could

No but I know on that track it wasn't And this is the thing it's like that contributes to i don't think it's a better or worse it's it's not about that it's just different like the drums are so important obviously in any kind of groove oriented music but stevie's like concept of playing the drums is so unique you know even though i know like if you look at the live stuff especially the live stuff from europe that's available to videos 74 75 with this band um and actually gregg brown is playing drums on a lot of those videos very young Greg Brown, and he's influenced by Stevie's drumming,

because you can tell he's checked out, talking book, and fulfilling this and stuff, and, like, Stevie's fills and stuff were so unique. But when we get to this where we've got what could be perceived, at least technically in terms of for drummers, more seasoned drummers, more trained drummers, it kind of changes the sound a little bit. It looks like Stevie has a couple of drum credits on this.

He's, according to our research here, he's the only person playing on knocks me off my feet. Okay. Oh, that's amazing. That's one of my very favorite tracks on the album. That's great. He has a drum credit on Isn't She Lovely, but also Raymond Lee Pounds has a drum credit.

Yeah. I don't know who's doing what there. But the earlier records, it's like he's almost playing everything. Even though there's a fair amount of other credits, it's usually background vocals, like Sanborn. I think superstition is all Stevie except for the horns, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah.

Yeah, Intervision that we just talked about a few weeks ago. He's all over that on drums. I mean, the whole thing. And playing a lot of music, bass on that stuff here. We've got, you know, Nate... Who's playing bass on here? Nathan Watts. Nathan Watts, yeah.

Yeah, so he's really getting into the band concept, and I think it, you hear that. I mean, it's a more polished record. You can already hear it at the beginning. So, we got you here, Chris, and we thought maybe we'd listen to some hits. So next up we have a Talk with God, which is one of my favorite songs on the album.

Village Gid, I mean, this whole, the entire first, like, you know, I mean, the whole, the whole album. I know, where do you cut it off, yeah. But I thought we'd actually talk about some of the chart toppers here. So the first single that was released was Sir Duke. Is that right? No, I wish.

I wish. And by the way, an interesting detail. The album drops in September 1976. They don't release a single from this album for another couple of months. Why? The person I would compare Stevie Wonder to in 1976 as Prince in 1985. If you remember when he put out his first album after Purple Rain around the world in a day. He claimed he didn't want to release any singles. And finally, the label kind of

forced his hand and he releases Raspberry Beret. Stevie did something similar in 1976. He's kind of like, no, here's the full album. And eventually, I don't know if it was Barry Gordy, but Motown prevailed upon him to release a single. And the first single they release is, I Wish. And it doesn't top the charts until January of 1977, like more than four months after the album is out. Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's so. Here's the first single. It doesn't get any better than that. The horns, by the way, are on trumpet, Ray Maldonado, on trumpet, Steve Mediio, on saxophone, Hank Red, and on tenor saxophone, Trevor Lawrence. And who's playing drums on that one?

Raymond Pounds. Raymond Pounds on drums. Nathan Watts on the bass and background vocals by Rini Linda Hardaway. But, man, that sounds good. Talk about clean. Oh, man, the drums. Right from the opening. Yes.

I mean, like, that is one of the best openings to us. single. You know, that do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- you know what it comes in. There are rap songs that came out decades later that I think are an homage to that opening. Right. That. Omage or interpolation? That's always the question. I mean, have you ever heard

the song On Fire by Lloyd Banks, which I think came out in like 2004? I'm convinced the opening of that record is like an homage to I Wish. Right. You know, stuff like that. Never mind the fact that I Wish also got actually sampled by the likes of Will Smith. Will Smith turned it into a number one hit.

Right. In 1999, I think, Wild Wild West. And like, wow, Wild West. Like every Stevie song, at some point on the album, he's going to take you to church. Like, there's going to be some church in the music, and this is a perfect example of that, yeah. And I think, too, the idea of, well, one thing with people using, you know, it's just a minor one to the four. Like, that's straight up church right there. You know, one to the four.

That's the adjolein. The baseline, you know, that. It's so simple, but so. effective and people can take it pretty much copyright free because it's a baseline. I mean, you can't totally, but I mean, that's why you hear it a lot, Chris. It's like they're hiding behind. They're hiding behind the baselines can't be copyright concept, which doesn't always work. But I mean, that's the thing, too.

Like, it's such an unusual, it wasn't that unusual at that time, but maybe to be a number, this was number one, right, on the pop job. Number one, number one on both the pop and R&B charts, January of 77. But to have something that's like so well crafted and starts out with. the super melodic bass line, you know, and then the drums coming in. I mean, I'm listening on here. Like, I think we can never, with headphones,

I think we can never understate how, and I'd love to hear your take on this, Chris, in terms of like stuff, not just being like musicians geeking out or big fans geeking out, but like, how does it cross over into everybody being like, I don't usually listen to Stevie,

but I heard it on the radio, and this is a hit all of a sudden. It's like the sound quality. I mean, these drums are mixed so well, like super hard pan on some of this stuff, the guitar. Ah. I mean,

just it's such a beauty, you know. The playing's great. Stevie, Stevie was the leading edge of crossing over funk, you know, and R&B in general to all audiences, right?

So, like, I mean, some prior number one hits by Stevie Wonder, he not only takes superstition number one, that's no surprise. But like, you know, the number one single from fulfilling this first finale

is you haven't done nothing. Yeah. Which is pretty funky for a record that tops the pop charts. Yeah, very funky. Or, you know, I think Boogie on Reggae Woman peaks at number three or number five, something like that. Like, he's getting some pretty funky stuff on pop radio even before songs in the Key of Life. So, like, I wish is just a gimmy by the time that shows up, you know, because he's Stevie Wonder.

He can sonically do varsity-level stuff that, you know, nobody else can do. Take up these horns real quick for my wish. Tight. tight. It's punctuation, right? Yeah. Even more than on most R&B records, the way the horns function in that record is just like

Yeah. Putting a button on everything. That's a great way to put it because you have a lot of, I mean, there's so many great horn sections that we're about to get into Earth, actually, it's already Earthwind and Fire time with those incredible horns. Sure.

Where they really take over for a while melodically. And on this track especially, they don't take over. It is. It's punctuation. It's like the syncopation. And like that part, I wish the Dave's bang, do,

it's called response. Like that little 16th note accent in there is so slick. And like most people, they don't know what that is, but they feel it, right? It's that, like, linking in with the drums. And, but, like, sonically, I mean, this must have been such a hard track,

the whole hard album to mix. Because there's so many little details that contribute, I think. I mean, yeah, he's laying down a funky groove, all that kind of stuff. But, like, the sonic. Stevie's singing is like it has so much expansive

you know it could just take over the whole thing with the mix and you could bring everything down to just this little thing and let Stevie be over but the way this is mixed is like everything has sort of has its place and it's a very dynamic range on it yeah no I I

even down to the way Stevie kind of chops up the vocal like he he takes words that are two syllables and why did those days ever have to go. You know, like he's, he, it's like, the whole song is punctuation. It's kind of like, you know, horns, Stevie, horns, Stevie. Right. That, that only enhances the, the groove on the record. Yeah. So, all right, Chris, what is the next single then that was, is Surduit next after I wish?

Sir Duke is next. Sir Duke is the second single. So talk about going from strength to strength. Yeah. Same horn section from my wish. Great pre-chorus coming out. Yeah. But you can tell right away and death to age. Again, punctuation. I was going to say, is this Stevie's tribute to swing?

I just said here. Is this the jazziest number one hit of all time? It's a song about Duke Gellington. But it's a specific type of jazz, right? It's specifically an homage to Duke Ellington, hence the title. Yeah.

And, you know, and the king of all, Sir Duke. You know, he's rattling off all those kind of early jazz pioneers. He literally calls them

pioneers in the lyrics. Yeah. There are some of music's pioneers. It's like, in the verse lyric, he's like, I'm about to give you

a list of things now. Yeah. It's a list of it off. It's a list song. It's a list song. Yeah. Right? People think of stuff like,

I don't know, Billy Joel's, we didn't start the fire as a list song, but there's a part of Sir Duke that's a list song. It's also a listening recommendation

in a number one hit. It's like, go check out. If you are enjoying this record, someone is exactly right. For a deeper dive. If you enjoy Stevie Wonder's songs in the Key of Life, you might enjoy bassie, Ella, you know, like...

Sachmo. Yeah. And the king of all, Sir Duke. But even that, you know, that the famous horn interlude here, let's see if I can find it real quick. The Panettae. After this part,

coming out of course. Bace is playing as well. You know, that's... I never thought about it like this, but that lied, I mean, this is like, evocative of the big band, you know, like the way that like a trumpet section

with the trombones, like a 2D kind of line. It's not quite. But it's not quite because it's entirely a pentatonic skiff. Yeah, I know, yeah. It's Stevie's vision of a big band horn line, which there's not quite as much of the chromaticism that you might hear or some of the functional harmony that

Duke would put into these things, right? Hence, it being a number one hit. Because if he put that stuff in. Why not? Can you confirm that? Right, he gets away with stuff in a number one hit that nobody else does. Yeah. But this is, I love you guys breaking this down from me because I've always wondered, I mean, I in my rudimentary knowledge of jazz, hear this and I think, okay, this is Duke Ellington-style jazz.

But it really isn't, right? It's a hybrid. Yeah. It's because it's coming out in the era of weather report and return to forever. It's a different era of jazz when he's putting this out. Yeah. It sounds very much like a line that Stevie Wonder would sing. Yes.

Because he loves singing penitone. He sings in pentatonics. Yeah, a lot of melodies there. Or maybe it happened on the harmonica. I'm not sure. But it definitely has, it evokes Duke. It evokes Count Basie. You know,

don't da-da-da-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba. Like, yeah, rhythmically. Like, it's actually within the swing groups. The soul that is there, but it's a little bit not the same. It's more like if that, if it were happening in the 70s, what would it sound like. Well, and to your point, Chris, about weather report, and then with this Adam, like, that was, you know, Joe Zavinal, Wayne Shorter, that whole weather report, Jocko. Right.

They were really getting into pentatonic type of stuff. And a lot of that was coming out of actually John Coltrane influence. So not so much the part of jazz, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Satchmo and King of Allster. Like the list that he was saying, but like Chick Corea, who Stevie Wonder was a huge fan of Herbie Hancock. You know, they would have McCoy Tyner. That was a big thing with that pentatonic sound. So he's kind of filtering through a couple of different kinds of jazz on, I mean, which is crazy because it's like the more, jazz you filter in the farther

way you're going to get from a number one hit normally but Stevie pulls it off and yet I mean I think in my memory you know you and I are roughly the same age Peter I was whatever five when this album came out this is the first Stevie Wonder song

I think I was cognizant of me too not counting either that or superstition because of Sesame Street but this this that they can feel it all alone yeah that hook is like it's like fused to my childhood brain. Yes.

Because it's so exuberant. It's so joyous. That's exactly what I was going to say about this track, Chris, is that I think the best part about it is it is like this, hey, you should check out this music from the past. These are the pioneers. It's a history lesson. It's a recommendation.

It's a music lesson. But it's done in the most joyful way possible. Like the whole thing feels like a party. And it's honestly sometimes the thing that jazz musicians forget about the music that we make is that it can be in fact, controversial, very fun.

It can be very... This is a hot take. We're going to pull this one out. This is going to... We can have fun. Jazz can be fun. It doesn't have to be an intellectual exercise. It can be, in fact, a very joyful party

as proven here. I'm doing a great job of like... I'm like, let's turn it into an intellectual party. A pentatonic scale. A pentatonic scale. No, but I want you to break that down for me because this has always fascinated me. Like, is this a jazz record?

Is this a pop record? Is this jazz filtered through a pop sensibility or a funk sensibility? This is jazz filtered through Stevie Wonder's sensibility is what I... What Peter was saying is like, Stevie will sing in pentatonics and you can just imagine him saying like,

you know, I want to write this sort of... I got these horns in the studio. I'm going to write this big band line line, but it still is filtered through his sensibility, which makes it very special. Like, it makes it a very... It's not just him nerding out doing research and trying to like put a bunch of sharp 11s in there and 13s

because that's what Duke would have done. He's just doing his thing on it. Yeah. And I don't think it's like, it's sort of, I think jazz is probably, when you really break down Stevie's music, especially the harmony of his stuff, it's like the easiest sort of attractions that he had,

that he had and influences that he has to analyze. But I don't think jazz is any bigger than say blues or gospel or even rock to a certain degree later on, maybe with Stevie. For sure. But I think in terms of like really the fundamental things that you hear in like his keyboard playing and the way that he sings, there's specific things in jazz, there's specific things in blues and for sure specific things.

Like for instance, on the one before, like that's actually a different version of a pentatonic. That's all pentatonic. Oh, interesting. Minor pentatonic. But then he breaks up the pentatonic on the four core, which is very much a gospel thing. You've got like, So he's sort of combining those. And I'm sure he wasn't like, let me combine the...

He's just hearing stuff. He's hearing stuff. But I think, like, he was such a student of, like, a wide range of music, you can tell. You know, this was not just like, oh, all this kind of stuff sort of came. I mean, you could hear, I've heard him live a bunch of times. And, of course, that was later on than this. But, like, he... I saw him one time, and this was probably early 90s or something, he started out the set and played Chickoria, Spain.

like everybody was so so hyped up it's like stevie comes out just instrumental which is like first of all oh that's another pentatonic so he likes pentatonic well there's a lot of pentatonic in there but like he just played it as like a fusion band

you know like like like wow just played it played like a solo like the trumpet player played us like that was their warm up tune I've heard him do giant steps as the warm up tune now it's Stevie Wonder he knows no one's gonna leave because he's not playing I wish as the first tune like people are there they're settling in

yeah yeah he can kind of play whatever he on the first tune. But I mean, it's just to say that, like, he understood a lot of different kind of music. We talk about funk. He was going to, actually, before this, he was going to New Orleans in 73 and 74, for sure, real quietly listening to and sitting in with the meters down there, Art Neville, George Porter and stuff used to tell stories about that. So, like, he had that kind of an influence with the New Orleans swamp funk kind of stuff.

So it's, to me, it's so interesting when it comes out on a number one hit. I'm like, damn. He basically pulled off two So I Wish and Sour Duke Have heavy jazz sensibilities to him Because this is almost like a walking bass line Well and Like a jazz walking bass line

Yes I was gonna say it sounds like a walking bass line Yeah And one of the other singles from this album is As Which features Herbie Hancock on the Fender Roads Yeah You know so there's yeah It's all over the place I want to get though

Before we get too deep I want to get to an honorable mention This wasn't a hit This wasn't a single But it produced one later and it comes its eighth track of the album. I love this song. You almost can't hear it.

You almost can't hear this song anymore without thinking of what it became 20 years later. I love Past Time Paradise so much. I love the production. Yeah. I love those synth strings. Those aren't since strings. Those are real strings, sorry.

No, since. Are they synths? Yeah, that's in Yamaha. Yeah. No, in fact, that was what was innovative about this record in 76. Oh, the GX-1. Okay.

Yeah. So, fast-forward their time, though I find, days long gone behind. Wasting most their days and remembrance of ignorance, so disphrased. So, fast forward 20 years. And you get this from Culeo, 1995's Gangst's Gangst's Paradise. Thank you. The number one hit of 1995.

The number one hit of 1995. The biggest record of that year. You know, Michelle Pfeiffer, turning around the chair, sitting down in the video. And by the way, notice a little something about that Cooleyo record. As badass as it is, what aren't you hearing on that record that you would normally hear on a 90s rap record? Oh, let's hear it again. Profanity? Profanity.

Yes, ding. That's right. Is that true? So the story goes that when Cullio and Cullio's label went to Stevie Wonder to see. seek approval for the sample. Yeah. Stevie said no at first. Then they went back to him.

And the second time he said, yes, but he said, but you got to take the profanity out. And Stevie did Culeo a favor, because that made that record that much bigger. It could be played all day on the radio. It didn't have to be censored or swooped or anything like that. It was a number one hit on the Hot 100. Yeah.

Right. At a time when gangster rap is ascendant. Yeah. You know, and, you know, I mean, I love Dr. Drez the Chronic, but, like, you know, they had to record whole different lyrics for nothing but a G-thing to get that on top 40 radio. You didn't have to edit anything on Cullio's Gangsus Paradise, and as a result, it's a number one hit in the top hit of the year. By the way, it charted again after Culeo's death in 2022 at number 55, which is interesting.

It went back on the Hot 100 after Culeo passed away. So does that, so that was, I was going to say it was that same, because I knew it was the exact same temple, same key, and I couldn't tell if that was interpolation or... I think it's an interpolation. If you listen to just how the string sound. Yeah. Plus, you're talking about a 19-year difference in technology. Yeah. Improvement.

I don't know. Call it improvement. But the synthesizer in 76 that he's using is, I guess, primitive compared to the one that, you know. Well, it is. The JX one, yeah, the Yama JX one was very, I was always amazed when I found, like, I could kind of tell it was like,

I don't think that's real strings. Stevie used a lot of real strings at different times. And in fact, I heard him do this at the Superdome in New Orleans. in like at the Ebony Festival, it must have been mid-90s, with a string orchestra. And it was stunning. You know, it was like to hear him do this.

It was one o'clock in the morning. I mean, the whole thing was incredible. But of course he did his version, not Culeo's version. I should just point out. But I mean, that's such a Stevie move in 76 on Pastime Paradise

to kind of like try to create an orchestra with a synthesizer. That's such a move that he would pull. It sounds great. I think he does something similar on Village Ghetto Land also on this album. I think that, too, has synth strings on it. Yeah, and he had such a unique take on it. Right, that's clearly a synthesizer.

Yeah. Great, another great song. It almost has a choir like strings with a choir on. It's just a very unique. Like, Stevie was, for all his genius stuff, and still on this record, and I see Greg Phillingame's name, who pops up on every, like, great hit that we see. It's like, Philo Gaines appreciates. months around here

you'll hear at podcast yeah yeah of course seriously yeah I remember when I first heard village ghetto land actually and being

this would have been I would have been 16 or so so around 1995 five and being a little like the strings

you know the synth strings sound horrible because you know I'm rocking it sounds thin by modern standards yeah I'm rocking my

insonic synthesizer sampler yeah sampler but but I still don't think I've ever heard a song quite like that. Yeah.

From anybody. It's such an amazing, amazing concept, the whole song. I mean, I think Stevie. And pastime paradise and Black Man, I think, are standouts in that part. Yeah. But I mean, even like getting to, yeah, even getting to 1976 and synthesizer and even sampling was starting to be happening, had progressed a lot from like music in my mind, fulfilling this even.

But like Stevie all along was such kind of an underrated thing that he did. he was such a pioneer and innovator as a tastemaker with synthesizers, like to be able to get different sounds. No, but he had this ability to not just, well, because you couldn't at that time really strictly imitate a string sound. So like he did one better instead of just trying to get his close. He tried, he was able to make it into a new sound.

You know what I mean? He was able to like tailor the sound and like really dial it in to make it like a personal kind of thing. And I think that when you hear this stuff, it actually doesn't sound dated like it should. You know, it sounds like the 1970s. Yeah. It sounds like when you hear an Asia kick drum. Right.

Like you don't hear a kick drum like that anymore. And it still doesn't make it not beautiful. It's gorgeous. But you could say some of its time. It's of its time. Yeah, you could say some of the early, you know, once we get into the early 80s with Stevie, some of the synthesizers sound,

some of the program drums possibly sound a little bit dated. Oh, he's getting mad. This is your Gen X. Okay, sorry. This is your conditioning. Your Gen X conditioning. You were. coming of age and thought you were too cool for the DX7 sounds.

Just admit it. Chris, let's talk about 1976, something he doesn't know about when Sir Duke was playing on the radio. When I was five, but go on. Exactly. I was five, I was six. But another thing, 76,

you're talking about like, you know, how optimistic Sir Duke sounded on the radio. And it did. It was also, that was kind of some of my earliest memories. It was like the bicentennial. It was like a big deal. Big deal. Everybody was into it.

It wasn't like today would not everybody be into it. Like, everybody was into it. Stevie's on the charts. There's a lot of like, there was just more unifying cultural sort of events, especially in music, you know, that happened in a way that now, you know, it's different.

Like, you know, whatever. Taylor Swift has all, what does she have nine things on the charts right now? And I couldn't sing you any of them because it doesn't hit my algorithm. Nothing against Taylor Swift. I just, but at this, I mean, in 1976, could you have avoided Sir Duke, you know, as an American?

Well, I mean, I'll invoke that word that gets used in these conversations. all the time, which is monoculture, right? You went in a world where you only had three TV networks and everybody got their music from the radio and you had to go buy your music in a record store if you wanted to play it back in your own home. Right.

You know, you had somebody like Stevie who could kind of own everybody and command the charts. And, you know, a number one hit was really, if not fully universal, very universal, right? Very universally consumed. Whereas now, you know, you're kind of, Taylor is legitimately huge but many weeks when it's not Taylor Swift

you know it's like the biggest among you know a smaller level of you know consumption it wasn't like that in 76 when Stevie Wonder dropped songs in the K of Y yeah we were just talking about this we just did thriller which would probably be out by now the time people are listening to this but we were talking about that same thing as big as Taylor is even you know my mom doesn't really know

any Taylor Swift songs but I I remember in 1983 or four when I was, you know, when Thriller was still on the charts, my grandma knew Billy Jean, like everybody knew, had heard it, had seen it, knew who Michael Jackson was, knew that music, actually. So I wanna play on a little flag where this show is going right now, just for our listeners here.

So if you notice, we're kind of, we're paying attention to the singles and the things that might have charted because we've got Chris Malanfi on, And so we will eventually do a show on some of the B-Sides on this. We've talked about songs in the Key of Life before, but we're going to have to do, Peter, we're going to have to do like a three-hour show at some point because it's so hard to skip over things like Somersoft and Ordinary Pain.

Oh my God, Somersoft. I mean B-Sides, you mean stuff that the musicians love. That's what we're talking about. That are like some of the greatest songs ever recorded. One that I don't want to skip. It wasn't a single, and I don't know if it ever charted anywhere, but I just know that as a young musician, saving up to move to New York,

I played a lot of weddings, and I never played a wedding that we didn't play this. Father-daughter dance. Yeah. Right. That's when you know an album's great when it has a song that is universally known and it wasn't even a hit. Wasn't a hit. I was shocked when I saw that this wasn't one of the, we were like, there was four. It was not one of the four singles.

That's crazy. Which means it didn't appear on the Hot 100. Back then, for a song to appear on the Hot 100, for it to be eligible, it had to be released as a retail single. Isn't She Lovely? Was never released as a single. Amazing. The two songs from this period, I would compare it to, this is a weird analogy.

I would compare it to Landslide by Fleetwood Mac from the self-titled record, not a single. Crazy. Now universally known. Crazy. And Vienna by Billy Joel from the stranger. No idea. You're kidding.

What? Not a single. And now it's like, particularly among Gen Z. If you ask a Gen Z person, name me a Billy Joel song, they'll name Vienna before you name just the way you are. well-known Billy Joel's song right now, culturally, certainly from The Stranger. Wow.

So, Chris, why would this have not, would that have been a Stevie? I mean, he had so much control that he just didn't want. Because, I mean, the record company, Motown would have been like all over this as an easy crossover hit. I mean, this is some of the most pop stuff on here, right? I mean, it has to do, okay, in my mind, it has to do with the typical practices in the music business at the time, which is that you never went more than three or four single. deep on an album. What was normal, quote unquote,

was that you would put out maybe a third single and then you'd say, okay, where's the next album? But again, Stevie Wonder is now changing that cadence. He's changing the pattern such that it's no longer weird for an album to take two years. The very next year, an album you guys just talked about, Rumors by Fleetwood Mac, becomes the first album to score four top ten hits

because they release four hits off that album. That had never happened before. Pretty soon, Michael Jackson becomes, the first soloist to pull that off. There were four top 10 hits from off the wall, which came out in 79. So, like,

the whole cadence of number of singles you'd release from an album, I will say it is odd to me that as great as the other two singles are, which I think we're going to talk about in a minute, that you wouldn't pick, isn't she lovely,

given what a mass appeal record it is? Yeah. But maybe they just figured, you know, they wanted to serve all the markets, and maybe they wanted something a little more jazzy or a little more R&B.

I don't know. Well, our producer, Liz, is going to help us out here because she has in her research. It wasn't released as a single because it's six and a half minutes long and Stevie refused. There is that.

He refused to shorten it to put it on a single disc. And even if he hadn't shortened it, now mind you, there's precedent for long singles. Hey Jude in 1968 was a seven-minute single that went to number one and was never cut. American Pie by Don McLean in 1972 is a nine-minute single. It had to get divided on 45 such that you heard

the first half on the A-side in the second half on the B side. But on the radio, everybody played all nine minutes of American Pie. So it's not as if there were no records that were six minutes long they were getting played on the radio. But I think Stevie probably knew that there would be a radio edit within minutes if they put this out as a single. And for him, the point of that record is hearing his daughter taking a bath,

you know, late in the sound effects are part of the atmosphere of that record. And Steve probably didn't want to. Yeah, and it's front loaded with that. and then it comes back later. And then it comes back. Exactly. There's a reprise of the daughter sounds. Exactly.

Ayesha. And I was just thinking, before you get to that, Adam, years, well, not that many years later on, I guess, Music Aquarium that was like 82 or 81, which was, you know, like some hits on there. I'd probably dissatisfy something with Moton. But it had Do I Do I Do on there. I mean, talking about jazz influence. And I don't know how big of a hit that was, but I remember that being on the radio.

A sizable hit. Yeah. Top 40 pop hit, top five R&B hit. So do I do was pretty big. Yeah. And so, but that, talking about radio edits, there's a Disney Gillespie solo on there that got radio edited off. If you didn't have the single or the album,

you didn't know anything about that because that never got played on. On my record. That never, I mean, I remember firsthand because I remember arguing with my sister. I was like, Disney Gillespie's on his. She's like, no, he's not checking. I would come on the radio and then it would just like, fan. She's like, I told you. I was like, no, no, he's about to play a great solo.

Typical. Very typical. Stevie on their record, he even starts rapping toward the end. Like he makes up a rap on the spot. He's just riffing as that record goes on and on. But then again, Stevie Wonder has a history of kind of seeing how far he can push it. Trivia, do you know what Stevie Wonder's first Hot 100 number one hit was? My Shiree?

Is it Fingertips Part 2? That is correct. And I'm glad you included the Part 2. Because it's like... The reason what... It's all Fingertips Part 2, which is a great record. by the way, it's Stevie Wonder, pardon my French, fucking around and refusing to get off the stage.

That's all it is. That's what that record is. And then him playing with the crowd. They're trying to yank him off. And you can actually hear the band in the background like, duh, they're trying to like, okay, that's our final note. Time for you to get off the stage. And he starts playing his harmonica again.

He refuses to get off the stage. Stevie Wonder, he's been pushing it his whole career. That's kind of what he does. That's so great. Chris, while we got here, I want to go down a little side path here. You mentioned Hey Jude by the Beatles. So Hey Jude, not part of an album, right? released as a single only.

Released as a single, just before the White album, yeah. Just before the white album, but I remember growing up thinking it was either part of Sergeant Pepper's of the White album, but it's not part of either.

It's not part of either. It's something on a compilation. You get it either on Past Masters or you get it on one, their collection of number one hits or something like that. But again, and oh,

and they built an album, Alan Klein built a whole album around Hey Jude, called Hay Jude, that came out in like early 1970, that collected a bunch of their leftover singles. but never on a formal album. You might know, but how common was that to have just like this? Very common.

That's a huge hit for the Beatles. I think one of the first five songs you might think of when you think of the Beatles for most people. I mean, many of the Beatles hits were not on an album. We Can Work It Out was not on an album. It was in America, in America they kind of reorganized. I think it's the American version of Rubber Soul to include We Can Work It Out.

But, you know, Day Tripper was not. You know, that was the B side of we can work it out. She loves you, not on Please Please Me. That was quite common. The British record industry had a very different ethic than the American where they actively did not want singles to be on the album. They thought they were fleecing the record buying public. If they put a single on an album, they thought the singles were supposed to stand alone and the albums were supposed to be separate. Whereas the American system was more, oh, we'll sell more albums if there's a hit on the album.

album. So it was almost like a different philosophy between the British and the American recording industry. So all these British invasion bands probably have huge hits that were never on an album over there for them. Never on an album. Yeah, that was quite common. Yeah. So speaking of that, like how would this

songs of the Key of Life, if at all been treated differently for the UK market? Because I know a lot of times we talk about the US and then we'll talk about the UK and then maybe like France, Germany, Spain or something, but then it's kind of like rest of the world. Maybe Japan, and I know Stevie's always been huge in the Japanese market,

but specifically for UK or anywhere else in the world, like how would this have been treated differently with these singles and with just radio airplay at that time, like how it was different? I mean, what's different about the UK charts compared to the US charts is that the UK charts, for most of their history,

have been exclusively sales, no radio airplay, especially in England where they have the BBC, and so the BBC is kind of a public trust. It would be weird for the BBC to be factored into their charts. So the charts, So the charts were always, you know, just sales, and now they are mostly streaming these days. But no, I mean, by the 70s, both the U.S. and the U.K. were, you know, generally pulling singles from albums.

It's just that in the U.K., sometimes you'd pick a different single from the album. I haven't checked, actually. If you give me a minute, I can check my British chart book and see if they picked different singles. I don't know if they did, honestly. It looks like there were only three singles from Songs in the Key of Life. I Wish went to number five. Sir Duke went to number two, UK, and another star went to number 29 UK.

And then we jumped to Send One Year Love, which is from Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. So unless they went back and released As later, what's interesting to me about them not releasing as in Britain, back in 76, 77, is that that was later a big hit in a cover by George Michael and Mary J. Blage in the late 90s. And that version was probably

one of the first versions to be a British hit. Interesting. As had a renaissance in the late 90s there, I think it was a part of a movie soundtrack. I'm gonna forget which one. The best man, maybe? Remember that movie? Yeah, could have been. Something like that.

Before we get to the next couple singles, though, guys, I do want to just give a little bit of a shout out to one of the songs on this album that, again, wasn't released as a single. I don't, of course, it wasn't a hit then, but is sort of become the jazz musicians standard off this album, and it's this song. If it's magic, then why can't it be everlasting?

Like the sun that always shine, like the poets and... Like the galaxies in time. Stevie and Dorothy Ashby. Yeah. You know, it's funny. He's going to say, that's got to be a real harp there. Yeah, that's Dorothy Ashby, who has an incredible legend.

This is called Soul Variations from her Afro Harp album in 1970, I think. Sixteen. Amazing. She has an amazing string of Soul Harp Albums. I knew none of this. You're educating me on this. cool. Is that a is there a billboard section for the

Afro harp chart? No. Pretty sure there has never been such a chart. She would be at the top. The last time we talked about... The last time we... I just want to shout out our dear listeners here, the little here podcast. The last time we talked about if it's magic, I said, I don't know, I'm not sure who's on the harp. We got a ton of comments like, Dorothy Ashby, go look her up. And they were not wrong. Everybody should go spend an evening or two

with Dorothy Ashby's catalog, because it is so funky and so soulful. and she's an incredible player. Yeah. But if it's magic is an interesting one, you were playing a little bit of it. Well, I've just realized

I never thought about this pentatonic again. That whole melody is a major pentatonic this time instead of minor. But the form of it, the core changes and everything feel very much like a modern jazz composition. Like, it feels...

I think this is why jazz musicians have interpreted it in a bunch of different ways, not just as like a ballad like you might think of just a pianist or guitarist playing it, which we've heard. Who's played with it?

I wasn't aware of that. That's really cool. And it's basically, it's kind of, jazz, like not what were we talking about before in terms of like the rhythm or the walking baseline. This is almost like American, great American songbook type of melody and chord changes where jazz players take it and then stretch it out. You know, it's very, very rich for us. Yeah, it's just, it's everything we love about

Stevie's harmonic geniuses in, if it's magic. And all the things that kept it from being a single. You're probably right. So, I mean, that would have even, for Stevie, that would have been a tough song. He would have been a tough song. I guess he technically with his great, like, you know, the greatest artist-driven contract ever signed for control. He probably could have done it, but yeah. He probably could

have, but yeah, even he's not going to try that. So, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the next single that was released in the U.S. was another start. Oh, sorry. Before we move on, I have to, sorry. He's catching a wave again. He's catching away. No, just before we leave, if it's magic, I want to fill this in there because I got a chance to see, so Stevie did a chore about

eight or nine years ago, they went on for like a year, worldwide tour, kind of on and off again, called Songs in the Key of Life, in which he performed this entire album without intermission. I saw that tour.

Yeah. When did you see it? Yeah. I saw it in the mid tens, like 2014, I want to say. I think so. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I saw that tour. I saw it at Madison Square Garden. I saw it here at the Enterprise Center, and it was incredible. But I remember when it got to If It's Magic, that was, although obviously one of the lesser known things, except for the seven jazz musicians in the audience.

That was one of the, like, that's when I realized, there was more than seven people at that show that loved this entire album. And when it got to that track, that was one of the most stunning moments, at least of this show. I mean, Stevie just killed it. And it was well, like, two-thirds of the way in

because he was doing it in the order of the record. But emotionally, it was one of the most moving parts. And people were like on, I mean, people were on their feet, the whole show. But I remember that was kind of an apex moment of the show. So just to show that, like, this was not people coming out. I forget, did he bring out a harpist for that?

He didn't hear. I've seen him do it with harp before when he had the whole orchestra here. He did it with Keith. He actually accompanied himself at it on it. Very cool. That's amazing. So the next single released after I wish would be another star. Or after Sir Duke.

Sorry, after Sir Duke. And then, yeah, then summer of 77, it's another star. which doesn't chart as high, but cracks the top 40, makes the top 20 on the R&B chart. I think it got as high as number 18 on the R&B chart. Just such a funky groove. It's an interesting track, right?

It's almost a Latin track as far as I'm concerned. You know, like, it's Stevie doing something akin to what he's doing on Intervisions with, don't you worry about a thing. Yes. But in a different vibe. The mood is different. Yeah.

Yeah, listen to that piano, Montuio. I think I'm finally understanding why, because I was like, why would this have been one, out of all the songs on here, one of the singles? I'm thinking 1977, you know, variety shows on ABC. Like this totally, like, this is such, this is probably the closest to the sound of 1977. Couldn't you see it on a TV show?

Yeah, the opening credits of a TV show? The Osmond's introducing. The Cher show. Exactly, yeah. Just a shout out here to George Benson playing guitar and BVs on this track. Yep. Which I did not realize.

Yeah. Incredible. I didn't realize that was George Benson. That's... But appropriate, right? I mean, it makes sense. It totally adds up. When I think of another star, I don't know if you guys saw in, I guess it was 2014, when Daft Punk won the album of the year Grammy with Random Access Memories, and they did a medley of Get Lucky.

They included Stevie's another star. Stevie was on stage with Daft Punk and Farrell. and Nile Rogers, and they actually threw another star in there, and it sounded amazing. Wow. Yeah, so that's something to go back to. You know what?

I wouldn't put it together, but there are some similarities. Yeah. The sort of feel of the chord progression, obviously the tempo. The chord progression on Get Lucky is one of my favorite chord progressions in the last 20 years.

It's so irresistible. When are we going to do the random access memories, Pod, Pete? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Let's go. It's coming, man. All right.

The final single that was released in the U.S. is the best one. As. Sorry. It's an incredible. It's an incredible work for a brother. I agree. I actually agree.

God. There are days when As is my favorite Stevie Wonder song of all times. 100%. Which is saying a lot. Saying a lot. But it's true. It is an incredible song.

Features a friend of the show. Herbie Hancock. Is he a friend of the show? Well, we're trying to manifest it, Pete. Yeah. The show is a friend of Herbie. It should be. I mean, if there's any two people that this show is the...

Actually, I'm going to say three. Well, now, Chris, we got to add Chris to the list. But Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Greg Phillingades. That's becoming like the Trinity, because one of those is connected to almost everything. DeAngelo. DeAngelo, for sure. But as is, again, I don't even know how to describe it.

Let's just listen to them. Like, what I love about this song is the way that it starts is not how it ends. Right. Like, the hook and the verse are so different. This is some... Do you know what reminds me of a little bit when we get to the big build in a few seconds? Another song that was a number one hit in 1977, Don't Leave Me This Way by Thelma Houston.

In a similar way, the way, it's basically using gospel. but in an R&B context. Yeah. Different records, because, I mean, as is not a disco record, whereas don't leave me this way is, but similar idea. Like, what can we do with gospel?

How can we raise the roof? Right. At this inspiring moment. Right to the bridge. Out of nowhere. Man, first of all, one of the greatest tri-torn substitutions ever laid down in music.

Holy shit. If we're going to nerd out, you're going to... Please nerd out on that because that moment at the start of the second verse is almost my favorite moment on the whole record. Oh, it's so great. If you're going to call out the tritone subpeat, you've got to explain. It is.

Oh, another thing, Chris, you've probably come across this before. Stevie Wonder famously writes everything in the very hardest keys. This is in B major. Jesus. I wish isn't bad. I wish there's an E flat minor. He has a lot of E flat minor. B major.

A lot of B major. I mean, these are some of the hardest keys for any instrument. The far the sunshine is B major as well. Yeah. So, explain the Tritone's up. So it's basically... He goes down to the four, which is like somewhat common to start the second verse.

Is that the second verse? Is that the transition? It's like a bridge. The second verse. It's the start of the second verse. And so like the one chord, it could become the five, which kind of leads to where we're going here.

But he goes... But he's got... Play it again. Let me figure out the exact voicing. This is stuff we normally do when we're prepared, but we're unprepared. So this is another thing. This kind of bridges some things together that he's, no pun intended, that he's doing on I Wish.

So we've got, we're going from the major to the relative minor. And it's like going up to the four, kind of like. Yeah, it's very similar to the I wish. Very church. Interesting. I think I never noticed that before. Yeah. The groove on this, this is like probably the most R&B-ish kind of of anything on this record,

but like gospel and then like very much blues and church. Do da-da-da-do do do do do da-da-da-do. Keep playing it. Up to the four? This is the third verse. Yeah, I think that's the third verse. Not bad. I got you.

So yeah, he's going do-da-da-da-da-da-da-dud. So it's like an F-7 sharp nine. Going to the E major. It's a very like, to the four chord, right? But it's just like, yeah. Because the typical thing would have been just da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-do.

Don. Just before we even get into the tritone substitution, which is the nerdiest bit of this, the typical thing would have been to go back to the actual verse chord progression, which is B-major. Oh, that's true. Yeah, he goes to the form.

So this is almost like form-wise, this is almost a little bridge that happens where he goes to the four chord, the melody's different, and so hitting that... The melody's different, and the cadence is different, right? Because what's the first line of the first verses

as around the sun, the earth knows she's revolving? And then all of a sudden, when he comes back, he goes, did you know the true love asks for nothing? He's not doing the same cadence he did on the first verse. That's what blows my mind.

It's a middle eight. It's a bridge that happens after the first chorus, and then after this happens... Right, it is a bridge for... It's a bridge that is functional... That's it. Two.

Now back to the verse. Now we're at the one. Oh, we've got Peter Hancock here. Nice. Herbie's playing his ass off through all this, by the way. Oh, I know, and he's busy. Busy A-F. I love that, like, Stevie or some producer or something, well, Steve he was producer.

It's like, it's insane. Like, I don't know, wait till later you'll get your soul. Like Herbie starts out this track soloing Like he establishes himself with that boobudo bang Like that's the way the thing starts And like you know just studying Yeah Yeah

So that's Herbie with those first few notes Yeah Herbie's all over that electric piano sound there Look he's already He's already doodling Noodling I mean the noodling is part of what makes the record great Yeah exactly Rosebots know the bloom in early May

It's just hate knows love the cure And that's very Herbie-ish kind of stuff to play. Can you guys hear the difference between Herbie's style of play versus what Stevie's doing on the rest of the album? For sure. It's more noodling. Yeah, and it's more like, like, it's kind of like... It's more jazzy.

It's more jazzy. It's more... Like, that's a real Herbie doing those octaves. Nowadays you hear, like, every pianist, Robert Glassburg, Adam Manis, everybody imitates that now. This little thing, there's a bunch of herbieism. Herbiasms, yeah.

That's a herbiasism. That's a herbism. It's just his language all over this. Yeah. See, this is why I'm glad I'm here. You guys are explaining this to me. I never noticed this. But then to your point earlier about like starting to raise the roof.

This is it. This lift. I call this the lift off. Yes. This is why I'm comparing it to Don't leave me this way by Thelma Houston. You know, like, oh, baby, my love is filled right and desire for you. It's a similar, then till the day suddenly it's like the roof is raised yeah and the way he doesn't it achieves escape velocity yeah and going into that to the this is almost like foreshadowing to the big roof raising which is the whole ending part when they're vamping and they really go so like with the foreign then he pulls it back to this sort of bridge thing and the yeah here

oh we'll bring everybody back in here petatonic That's pentatonic there. Just the most joyous track on... And if we go long enough, I believe you get growly Stevie voice. You do. That's right. He comes back in for like another little mini verse, right? Yeah.

He gives you like the same voice he gives you on Living Foll City. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, this is a seven-minute record. Yeah. Yeah. And it was released as a single, but I guess Stevie was less bothered by the idea of that record being cut down...

be violating himself. Care more about his daughter's bathtub sound than Herbie's soloing. That's fine. Hey, that's his right. When you have that kind of artistic freedom, you do what you want. Herbie gets into something great here. I mean, all of it's great. Exactly.

Never to be played on a radio, but. Right. You're not going to hear. Maybe AOR, right? Yeah. That's another thing we haven't talked about. In the 70s, this is the peak of album-oriented rock radio. And although A-O-R is primarily,

bluntly a white rock format. They would play the likes of Stevie Wonder on A-Wong. Like, it was not on Herb. Interesting. Came out in 1976, Peter? What? Secrets. Secrets, right.

Secrets. My favorite Herbie Hancock album from his Headhunter's era, which actually almost mirrors... Is this two albums after Headhunters? Because Headhunters is, what, 73, 74? Yeah. Yeah, it almost mirrors Stevie's great era, actually. So it starts with Headhunters, and then you've got Manchild, uh, thrust and secrets

and secrets yeah um and secrets came out in 76 yeah yeah man that's stuff that uh that herbie's playing on there and i think that um i mean and this would this would totally make sense i believe that that was one take of herbie uh everything that he laid on there and that like almost everything was put together on this already so but that would totally make sense like having heard him live a lot and like different record like he could totally come in and like that's something like he's just playing.

Well, like, he listens. That's why you hire a pro. Exactly. Well, he's like, they play in the beginning, and he's like, okay, I think I got it. Let's go, you know, and like, do a run through. And then Stevie was probably like, yes.

And, you know, they were like, all right, cool. So. Why not? Other things that don't happen anymore. Guys, let's go into, because I think that's, that's all the sort of big hits that happened for sure.

And, I mean, there's... You didn't even talk about the greatest tune on the album. That's okay. We're talking about hits. No, we're going to, we're going to do, eventually, we're going to do a song's three-hour spectacular

where we go in a deep dive on every single track because it never feels fair to skip over anything. Well, I want to figure this out too, and since we have the expert on this here, Chris, you mentioned before that having, this was, like, we're joking around that there's many more singles available, but you said having four singles off one out,

this was like kind of groundbreaking in a way at this time, right? It was, like you normally didn't go that many singles deep, and this is just before rumors, right? So Rumors comes literally, I don't know, six months after this album. And Rumors actually generates four top ten hits, but this has four singles on it, which in and of itself is kind of pushing it by 76, 77 standards. So, yeah. So with those things as big a hits as the Rumors hits, but the fact that they all made the top 40 is significant.

So would that, are those connected at all? Or was that just kind of random? In other words, did the success of this and putting out four singles, would that have, affected Fleetwood man? It probably, I have to guess that it's off in the ground. Like, the labels all watch each other's, you know, patterns. And if they see, oh, wow, they, you know, because let's talk Turkey, especially in the age of Paola.

Yeah. Like, getting a song on the radio was an expensive proposition. Part of the reason why the labels would cut it off after two or three singles was that they're like, look, we've sold what we're going to sell on this. And we're not going to commit another, whatever, $200,000 to get another single up the charts, which is going to require us paying, promoting. to get it on radio stations. Yeah.

So, you know, eventually you got to cut your losses or, you know, not throw good money after bad. But when you have songs in the Key of Life, which is a blockbuster success out of the box, by the way, we should talk about how it debuted on the charts, because that's significant. Yeah, please. Well, so Songs the Key of Life is only the third album in chart history

to debut at number one. Two albums by Elton John did this previously in 1975. Captain Fantastic in the Brown, Dirt Cowboy and Rock of the Westies. Captain Fantastic is still remembered as a great Elton John album. Frankly, Rock of the Westies is not, but because Elton John was at the very zenith of his imperial period, he could get away with that.

Stevie Wonder is the first American to pull this off, the first American artist to debut at number one on the Billboard charts. And then I look this up, this is a shocker. The album chart, yes, the what is now called the Billboard 200. Back then, it was called Top LPs. So in the first week, it debuts, it enters the charts at number one. And yeah, I'm sorry, a little context for this. Yeah.

Before the charts were computerized in the 1990s, this was mostly impossible. It was very difficult to get the old system where you were relying on contacting retailers by phone or later facts to tell them, okay, give us your top records. For them to all line up and say, yeah, my top record is this one record. There are literally only six albums prior to 1991 that debut at number one. The three I just mentioned, the two Elton John albums, songs in the Key of Life, and then in the 80s there's Bruce Springsteen Live, the box set. There's Whitney Houston's Whitney, and there's Michael Jackson's Bad. That's it.

Those six records are the only ones that debut at number one. So not thriller. Not Thriller, not off the wall. I mean, not rumors, none of them. That makes sense just with what you were saying. From the technology standpoint, there's just going to be a lag between when it's released and when they can collect the data because it's all analog. collecting the data.

Right. It's hard. And some people will point to corruption and say, oh, it was the bad old days when everything was corrupt. No, it was,

yeah, there was payola and there was corruption. It was also just technology. You literally did not have the data to make it possible for things to debut at number one. What we then discovered after they switched to the sound scan system

where, you know, they're scanning barcodes at record stores in 1991 is, oh, actually more albums than not are going to debut at number one. Now in a typical year, you know, anywhere from 25 to 40 albums

will debut at number one. It's totally commonplace and it's not special anymore. But prior to 1991, only six albums did it. And I mean, I ticked off Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston,

all megastars, right? You had to be a megastar to pull this off. Right. And the other record that songs in the Key of Life still holds, it not only debuted at number one, it stayed there for 13 weeks. And that is a record that even today

it still holds. There are plenty of albums that debut at number one. We just had a Taylor Swift album, debut at number one last week, obviously. But they routinely fall out of number one in a couple weeks. Maybe if you're Taylor,

you might stay number one for eight or nine weeks. But Stevie Wonder stayed number one for 13 weeks. 14 in total, it went back for one additional week in early 77. No album has stayed number one number for as many as 13 weeks after debuting at number one. So that's how exceptional this album was. That's so interesting.

And I'm wondering, and this is entire, so for the albums at that, time, that would be entirely on, is that entirely computed on record sales? Nothing with airplay? Yeah, I mean, in the 70s, it's, you know, retailers reporting their weekly sales back to Billboard and saying these are our top 30 records this week. Yeah. And then Billboard, you know, compiles that data. You know, now it's actual piece counts. Now they're actually, you know, scanning barcords or nowadays streams. Right. Yeah. But so I know that that, this record was kind of a

a zeitgeist moment. Absolutely. Songs of the Key Life for specifically kind of like black middle class, well, just black record buyers in general, obviously crossed over way into the white web.

But I'm wondering if those first weeks, like this was such a big deal and it was a double album, so it was more expensive. What was it like 50% more, I think as I recall like a double album? By the way, we haven't even talked about this. It's technically a two and a half album.

Oh, that's right. Because it comes with a 45. Yes, I've got that. Four additional songs, Ebony Eyes, no way, do I have this All day, Saturday? Sorry, I do.

The something extra, yeah, Saturn, Ebony Eyes, all day sucker, and easygoing evening are all on the bonus album. So it's like a double album plus. Yes. But in a way, promotionally, my understanding, again, I was five when this album came out,

so I've read up on this. I don't remember this first hand. But the two-year delay kind of worked in its favor because, you know, what we just saw with this Taylor Swift album, where like the whole country was momentarily obsessed with, oh, Wins Taylor's new album coming out.

It was like that for 1976. Everybody was like hyped up. Like Stevie Wonder had gone the longest he had ever gone without an album. And he was coming off of inner visions and fulfillingness, both of which won the Grammy. So everybody was waiting. Yes, the black community overwhelmingly, but like white fans too, everybody wanted to hear this record.

Right, right. This was an event. Yeah, it was promoted as an event. Yeah, absolutely. Actually, I've seen some too. they put in a lot of like they had a whole campaign a print campaign with like

entire I mean definitely like in billboard but I believe even in like some newspapers and stuff placed with a whole like with the lyrics to some of the songs I'm trying to remember which one was on song of the one if you look at the vinyl package it came with a booklet which is quite unusual where you a stapled booklet with all the lyrics

yes so the the patent I mean just the gatefold it's a beautiful package so great well you were buying an Ojet art when you were buying the sales. Yes. That sounds like an accoutrement, which makes me think of our categories. And I think let's get to our categories now, because Chris, you were so generous to... 13 weeks. Take some time. I know, it's crazy.

You were so generous to take some time and fill out our silly categories. Let's start with Desert Island tracks. Peter, what do you think? I mean, I'm going to say Summer Soft, partly because we didn't listen. I mean, I probably would have said if it's magic, but Summer Soft is the one. Thank you. The definition of a good album cut. Oh, Yeah. It's got the harmony.

Right, like this is never going to be a radio hit, but on the album, it just enriches the album. But it's like fast forward 10 years or maybe, no, less than 10 years, this could have been like, what was it, Quiet Storm? Like this could have been in the Quiet Storm format. It might have been played at 2 o'clock in the morning. It's romantic.

It's got the Stevie, like, Like that his whole, I mean, his range of voices. We talk about the ground. I mean, it's almost like he's an actor with all these different roles he can play as a vocalist. And I just, I love that track. Sue me. Chris, what do you got for your desert island?

I mean, I've already said it's As. Like, I mean, that's just, it's such a perfect record. I mean, but I guess a close second might be I wish because I just love I wish so much. And there are days when like I need to hear I wish because it's stuck in my head. Yeah. But as is, I don't know, it's just so moving.

It's like the lyric and the performance and everything jills on that record. It's like a perfect Stevie Wonder record. Chris, was there any chance that your Desert Island track was going to be any of, not one of the four singles, given your pedigree and expertise? Yes, actually, I would say probably my third place pick is knocks me off my feet. That's great. That's so good. That's very close to a Desert Island pick for me.

That would be my worst. wife Kelly's for sure. I already know that would be her desert. I mean, you mentioned like perfect album cuts. This is another perfect album cut. Is it another kind of a quiet storm vibe? Again, this is almost radio worthy. I feel like you can play this on the radio. Yeah, I would say there's probably

another three, four, maybe five that could have been a single from another, from another album. What was the thing? Actually, I'm remembering back on this. Do I remember? I barely remember. I know for sure I'm like off the wall. Like radio airplay of songs that

weren't singles. That was definitely a thing in St. Louis on the R&B stations. That used to happen a lot. I mean, there's a track on Off the Wall is that I can't help it. That's the one written by Stevie Wonder. That I think is a black radio staple. Absolutely. That was playing.

Yep. Yeah. That's a quiet storm record for all intents and purposes. Exactly. I've always said it's like it's half, not half, it's like a combination of a disco record and quiet stormy. People are like thinking I'm putting it down. I'm like, that's one of my favorite record.

It's actually my favorite. That's a compliment. Exactly. It's absolutely a compliment. I had as... Gen X Rising. You hear us? I hear you.

I hear you. I had as well, but I'm also going to put in my second spot here if it's magic, just because it's so beautiful. It's such a beautifully written song. Wait,

so Desert Island tracks, we get to pick two. Is that what you do? Well, I'm sorry. Chris already got as. I cheated. But then he also... Chris is the guest.

He's allowed to. He's allowed to. That's right. He's the guest. Okay. Apex moments. What do you got, Peter? come back to me.

Let's go to Chris. Chris, what do you got? I mean, I've already, I just mentioned knocks me off my feet. The segue from I Wish into Knocks Me Off My Feet, when you're coming out of I Wish and going into, it's almost seamless. I would need to go back to a vinyl pressing to hear just how close they come. But on my CD, it's like one flows into the other, and it's just such a beautiful moment. Let's try to catch that a little bit. We'll listen to the last few seconds of I Wish.

And this is on Right, coming out of this. This is on Spotify, so it might not work out great. That might be Stevie on drums, actually. That sounded like, it's fade now. I think that might be. That.

Just, there's something about that combination that. So good. Like, knocks me out every time. No pun intended. Knocks you off your feet. Knocks me out. That's a great, great apex moment. I'm going to go.

Can we just talk real quick about Stevie being the... Come on, you catch it away, bro. No, can we talk about Stevie being the master of the segue between songs? Like, I think this is something that he was... Album flow. Oh, my God, album flow. Like, he had so much intention. Talking book has a lot of that.

Talking book has moments where the songs just kind of are perfectly sequenced. I know it's something he thought about him. I mean, because you don't get lucky that many times with that. Great sequencing. Go ahead, sorry, Adam. For my Ampx moment, I'm going to go with... Go ahead, just making sure. I'm going to go with Herbie on As.

I'm going to go with that entire last section when Stevie gets the growl going. Wow, you really knock that fastball out of the park. Way to go. 86 mile an hour fastball. And you hit it. I'm a simple man. You started on third.

You went home. Way to go. You give me Stevie growling. You give me Herbie Hancock shredding on a beautiful sounding Fender Rhodes. There's a moment late in Aswer, like, he does this tinkly thing, this do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-that I just love. Yeah. The herbiasism. The herbiasms.

Okay, Peter, do you have one? So I got... Can I talk now? Gosh. You know, I had originally put down contusion. This shouldn't... I was surprised we didn't talk about contusion as jazz guys. I would think you guys would be interesting.

We always hear from jazz musicians that we don't talk about contusion enough. Yeah. Talk about a fusion track. Straight up... It sounds like Chick-Torea. Yeah. It's the only instrumental on the record. Weather reports.

Unless I'm forgetting something. It could be on secrets. It could be on heavy weather. Yeah. Heavy weather, yeah. But that's actually not my Apex moment. Sorry, contusion fans. I'm glad you brought it up.

I'm glad you mentioned it in passing, because that's an interesting track. That was probably played on jazz radio in the set. Almost for sure, that was played. No, I think the transpositions on Summer Soft, there's like three of them. They are like beyond just your typical left ones. They're so genius.

This whole tune is super hard. It's in a hard key. The harmony. It's constantly changing. Now it's in E major kind of A. It's actually in B. It's weird. And it's like, wait what?

Oh, it's back to G flat. So these aren't transpositions necessarily, but they're like, Ah. Just the harmonic movement on it. That's beautiful. Yeah, we'll allow that. And then actually, I was even talking about later when it actually goes to change.

when it starts to get into it. To me, this whole thing. It's so good. It's so good. Guys, we could just listen to the whole album. We don't have to just do the hits. No, it's so incredible. Okay.

And I'm a little surprised Summer Soft. Now that I'm thinking about it again, now, isn't she love? I was going to say, what was the most likely to be the next single? If it was a fifth single, it would have been, isn't she loved? It's got to be.

But, bespoke Spotify playlist. If this album were on a playlist, which I'm sure it's on many, what would be a good bespoke playlist name for this? Chris, do you have a good one? I was going to call it More Is More albums. Because, like, okay, one thing I went back when I knew I was doing with this, you guys. I went to my friend Alan Light wrote the review of this album for Pitchfork, and he gave it a 10, or Pitchfork gave it a 10.

And he said something really smart. He said, almost everyone understood the magnitude of wonder's achievement, but there were some objections, mostly having to do with the length and sprawl of the record. And then he quotes several people who were quibbling about how long the record was. But to complain about the excess was to miss the point. Any great double album like the White Album or Exile on Main Street could easily be edited into something tighter and more consistent. But the all-encompassing aspiration is the whole idea. The desire to contain multitudes and to cover as much ground as possible during a revved up creative groove. Sometimes more is more. And that was the truest thing I think I've ever read about. Because frankly, among my favorite Stevie Wonder albums, we'll get to this. I'm more of an innervisions guy. I play that record more often. But like the whole point of this album is the muchness of it.

It's too much. It's depth. It's so long and there's so much to it. But by the way, as we've been discussing here, very, very little filler. There's very few tracks that you are skippable, if any. No. There's nothing to throw... Well, of course there's nothing to throw.

All of them are worthy of a listen, and many of them, as we've been talking about, are masterpieces that, you know, behind masterpieces. I like that. I have, for my bespoke Spotify playlist, two and a half albums. I didn't have anything, but when you mentioned that there were two and a half discs

in the original, I thought that was great. And as I recall that 45, I don't think that they really advertised that. That was like a little bit of... I mean, obviously word got out, but it was a little bit of like kind of an extra Easter. It was a bonus. Yeah, it was a bonus.

They called it a something's extra. Oh, awesome. That was Steve's name for, A something apostrophe S extra. Man, this was an event album, you know. Peter, what do you got? That's what I should have, um, bespoke Spotify plays. But that doesn't make sense on Spotify, because Spotify somehow kills everything and makes them not events with their damn

fade-ins and fade-outs. Sorry, but I digress. You're here. I'm calling this, this is really clinical, but four-plus singles, jams. But I'm adding a Z to jams. To make it fun? To make it fun.

Well, in all seriousness, you could compile a Spotify playlist of albums that generated four or more singles and the singles are all great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you get to the 80s, then it's commonplace. It's, you know, thriller, it's born in the USA, it's Faith by George Michael,

it's, you know, hysteria by Def Leopard. It's, you know, Madonna's True Blue, like lots of people did multiple hits off an album. But this is one of the earliest that's pulling that many singles off an album. All right, you heard it, folks. Create the playlist. You got it.

Okay, up next, what other albums pair with this? What are you playing right after this? Peter, you want to go first on this one? Well, I'm playing rumors. Because, like, I think, you know, sometimes I go into like, I mean, I could be like any Stevie I would listen to, but I think, you know, to Chris's point of more is more,

like, you listen to this whole thing. And that's what I always take this. Like, if I were to listen to this whole album, first of all, I'm going to smoke a cigarette after I listen to this whole album I'm going to drink a bottle of wine I'll probably drinking a bottle of wine while I'm listening to it. You don't even smoke, but I don't smoke.

It would be a good time to start. But I think, you know, the reward you get from listening to an album of this length but where the sequencing is so good, it's such a, it's like an epic movie or something. What would you actually listen to next? Actually, Rummers would be bad because that's another kind of epic album.

But it's different enough. It's different enough. It would be fun. But it's from the same period. So I'm going to go with Rumer. Chris, what do you got? I'm going to go with a Donna Summer album, and I think the obvious pick is bad girls, because I think it has a similar ambition.

It's a double album. It's kind of her and George Omeroder and Pete Bellotti kind of doing this kind of ambition across two platters. It's in an R&B context, but also a pop context. I don't know. Logically, I feel like you have to have songs in the Key of Life first for bad girls to make sense and be the block. buster than it was. This is a great pick, man.

This would flow right. Yeah. I mean, it's two years later. It sounds like two years later, three years later. Yeah. But it makes sense. I love this track too. Man, it's such a reminder. We talked about earlier from like the early 70s to the mid-70s, which would take us right to songs in the key life, technologically with music and instruments being such a rapid expansion and recording technology. But from 75 to 78 and 79, then you get into off the wall. Huge jump. I mean, the 70s was... Huge jump. Big, big jumps in there.

For mine, I'm going to go... I'm going to do a first here on this podcast. Yes. I've never actually done an up next and recommended a podcast, but I'm going to recommend the Wonder of Stevie, brilliant podcast that was released last year, covering this period of Stevie. That was great. Of Stevie's career, if you haven't checked out The Wonder of Stevie, go listen to it. I will also throw in there. My friend Wesley Morris. Wes and Morris, amazing. And if you want some music that you might pay you.

with this. For me, we mentioned secrets released in the same year from Herbie Hancock, who was, of course, playing Rhodes on as, but I think secrets would pair nicely with this. Okay, so two. You got two again. Okay, sorry, I'm spoiled here. Who's the guest? Who's the guest? Quibble bits. Chris, why don't you start it off?

What are your quibble bits? My quibble bit is Joy Inside My Tears, which I love the groove on that track, but it goes on for six and a half minutes, and I sort of feel like it doesn't modulate enough. I wouldn't say I ever skip that track, I don't, but it could have been four minutes and it would have been fine with me.

That's my quibble bit. I love the bass on this track. I do, too. This is another Stevie voice, totally different voice. Yes. My quibble bit is actually, we mentioned how long this is, but not long enough. I'm going to say that, Stevie lazy. This is like when you do a job interview and you say, oh, my greatest flaws is that I'm too much of a

Yeah, my greatest fault is I care too much. I care too much. I care too much. I help others too much. No, you know what it is? It's so brilliant. I could honestly live in this album for three hours. I really could. I'm trying to remember when we did Intervisions or any of the others.

I don't remember ever being able to really, I always want to come up with the quibble bit. And I don't want to be such a fan. The only thing I can say is maybe, I'm sorry, did you finish with your ridiculousness? Thank you. Thank you. Because you usually have to. No, it would be. I mean, this is such a minor thing.

I think the mix on this record is incredible. I think the mastering of it. Careful. I think the sound. The drums are so, like hearing it in headphones again, which I haven't done in a while, the drums are pans so heavy right and left, certain parts of them that it,

it's just a particular way of doing it, you know? But I think that it almost is a little distracting. But I mean, we are talking to the quibblest of the bits right here because I think it's genius-level mixing. You mean compared to the drum sound on like intervisions or music of your mind or something like that. But even compared to, and this was a little bit of a stylistic thing

in the mid-70s is to do that. It's like, and I mentioned earlier about in terms of placement within the mix, so important, so many different things happening, Stevie's range in terms of vocals possibly taking over everything, but then having, you know, nothing is flat on this record.

Everything is, but like the drums are so much wider than everything. They pushed them so far to the right and left. Minor quibble bit. Steve is Stevie producer of this album, so I hope he's listening right now and took your note, Peter. Thanks for the note.

Remix. Remix, please, Steve. Is this project locked, Stevie? Okay. Snobometer. Chris, what do you have? This is on a scale of 1 to 10, right? Correct.

Okay, first of all, let me warn you, Chris. I'm new to this concept. No one understands it. No one understands it. So, the idea is that Go ahead. One is a very accessible, a very commercial... A very commercially viable album.

Thriller would be a number one. A 10 would be like a Cecil Taylor album that is a very snobby album that is not for the masses that is for music snobs. Yeah. I think I understood it, and when I thought about this,

I gave it a four. Because I feel like there's a lot here for music snobs, and the muchness of the album is a lot to digest, and yet it's very accessible, right? So it's making a lot of concepts that would be

inaccessible, accessible to a pop audience. Yes. What do you have? I think that's honestly the best snobometer rating we've ever had. Hold on, I say stuff like that all the time, and you're like, you don't, why don't we throw away this stuff? You've been a five on the stomometer every episode this season. Well, that's not true. What do you got right now?

Let me guess. Can I guess what you have? I'm going to go, Chris, we got Chris on the four. I like it. I respect it. I'm not going to go exactly there, but you go first. I have a three. Of course you do. Explain that. What is that? So a three is just a little bit more on the commercial side of things than I think where Chris is on it. I think it's very accessible. I think it's got a ton of tracks that you play at weddings that are number one hits. I think if you're on now, especially with the context of this show, Peter, where we talk about people like Thelonius Monk and Art Tatum, like this is incredibly accessible.

What do you got? I got five. I knew it. No, the reason being, Similar to Chris, but I would say it's almost down, like to me, like, how can you call, you know, the first, the only records is to debut, debuts on the Billboard top pop charts. Yes. Top albums. Number one. And stays there for 13 weeks. So how is that any snobby at all? That would make it a one on the snobometer.

That's like universal appeal out the gate. And yet. And yet, then all these things that we picked out here would make it a 10 in terms of like the pentatonic and he's going to the tritone. and all this. The complexity. The complexity of it, like the nuances of it. The range of it is kind of crazy in terms of stylistic range. So that would make it a 10. So if you average 10 in 1, you come to 5. Okay. I'm not going to shame your snowmometer score. I also think there's something about the length. And this may have something to do with the difference between Peters 3, or excuse me, Adams 3 and my 4, which is that you think the album could be even longer than it is. I have always been closer to the camp that thinks it's over along, particularly when you include the bonus 4. Yeah. And there's probably a tighter version of this album, but what would you throw out? Like, I can't think of what you would throw out. So something about the length also has something to do with the snobometer, I think.

Absolutely. Is it better than Kind of Blue? Is it better than Miles Davis' 1959 masterpiece Kind of Blue? Peter, what do you have? I got maybe on this. Also what you've had every episode this season. No, I haven't. That's not true.

A couple times you have even. Yeah. Actually, I'm going to say probably not But closer than one would think Chris, what do you have? It is not better than Kind of Blue. I'm only judging this on how much I play those two albums. I am the quintessential pop guy

who plays Kind of Blue a lot. I'm not a jazz guy, but Kind of Blue is perfect. I can put it on any time when you're in the mood. Kind of Blue is the thing that scratches an itch that only Kind of Blue satisfies. I don't play this in full. as much as I play kind of blue. I dip in and out of this album a lot.

So, yeah. I love that we should probably think about adopting this. I love that Chris is like, we always, I think we started to overthink the better than kind of. I mean, like, what I'm hearing from you, Chris, is you took this as literally the proof is in the pudding in terms of how you react. Not what you think you should be doing.

Not what you think people should think of you. I hear what you're saying. I'm trying to be a little objective as well because like what is, kind of blue. It's the most perfect album in its genre, right? So I'm not sure that you can say that Songs in The Key of Life is the most perfect album in its genre and it's quite long. It might not even be the most perfect Stevie album. We've talked about this because often it's not. It's Inervisions, this is most perfect album in my opinion, but that's me.

But the question is, is it better, which implies it's a personal taste, right? It's your personal taste. And the proof is in the pudding. It's like, which one do you put on more? For me, I put on songs in the key of life more than I put on kind of blue. I've listened to it more in my life than I've probably listened to Kind of Blue. So I'm going to say yes it is better than Kind of Blue. Okay. I like the flag that you planted. I like the firmness of that. Thank you very much.

Oh, it's not a firm flag. I can kick that thing over. Don't worry. Accruements. Peter, why don't you go first? I mean, this is 10. 10 out of 10. Like the art, like it speaks to the time, the booklet. Thanks for the reminder on that, Chris. I still remember what that feels. I still have it. The 45 genius.

That wasn't the first time that was done, but I think this is kind of the most, the way that that was done, probably one of the most famous times, the double album. I mean, even like the, what is it, Tamla, Motown, you know, on the LP,

the label on there. Tamla had a beautiful label. Yeah. I also have a 10 out of 10. I just can't imagine it getting much better than this. Chris, what do you got? I was going to give it an 8. I may go up to a 9.

I wish the sleeves that held the LPs were a little prettier. They were a little plain. That's a quibble. I like that. That's a deep cut. And also, Stevie Wonder album art, as beautiful as the cover of this album is, and it is beautiful. I don't know. I kind of love

interventions and maybe even fulfilling this a little bit more. But these are minor quibbles. It's at least a nine, if not a ten. I wouldn't argue with y'all's ten. Well, and then maybe you're bringing in, and we probably are in a certain, like the two-year wait. It's like, now everybody's

demanding perfection for every like like you say you got to go to the sleeves of the actual LP and i think you delivered on the music and hey you got to come on stevie are you listening you got to get the drum mix together and get your sleeves together then you'll have the perfect album it's like we have some nerve even bringing this i know right i know that's the fun of it it is the fun of it and uh yeah chris milanfi of uh the hit parade podcast thank you so much for being here with us today thank you this was so much fun it was really a blast everybody go check out hip parade we're going to link to the show so that you can check Chris's podcast out. It's fantastic.

All of the chart talk that you guys do over there is just fantastic and appreciate your time with us today. And if any of our listeners want an antidote to us like, you know, blustering through and messing up the charts as we talk about it, go over to hip parade where they get the shit right. You know what I'm saying? Because I know one thing. I'm listening to Hip, but they're talking about tritone substitutions and screwing those up. They are not. We got to get our chart game together. Really, you should be listening to both.

they compliment. There you go. That's what they just listened to. Until next time. You'll hear it.