Song Review: A Greatest Hits Collection

by

Stevie Wonder

Edit

Although Original Musiquarium & At The Close of A Century are better compilations,Song Review is a less expensive more well rounded collection,as well as a recommendation for the uninitiated.Unlike Musiquarium, that focuses on his brilliant 1972-1980 work,Song Review also features his 60's & 80's work.And for the Stevie fan,it featues the first appearance of Ebony & Ivory and Stay Gold(from The Outsiders) on a Stevie Wonder collection.Also a bonus are the single mixes of many songs making it a blessing when making Stevie mix tapes.The only problem is a "thrown together" feel of the sequencing,where different era & song styles don't mesh.And like many compilations,some essential songs aren't included in favor of others thats on every compilation(where's You Haven't Done Nothing, a #1 hit , If You Really Love Me,Shoo-Be-doo...)and the editing of the 10 minute plus Do I Do & the 6 Minute Lovelight In Flight would've left room for more songs.In all this should be a starting point for people getting into Stevie's Music.Then from there Innervision,Talking Book,Fullfillingness...you get the picture.

First things first: Stevie Wonder's album output of the '70s is

among the finest continuous strings in the history of

popular recorded music. Of that there cannot be any

argument. What can be argued is that there has never been

a wholly satisfactory compiliation that summarizes his entire

career, save for the 4CD set "End of a Century". Admittedly,

it's a difficult task, since you need to cover the '60s

Motown "factory" era, which yielded a lot of great pop/R&B

singles, the '80s and '90s which yielded a few delights,

though they are too sparsly scattered, and the '70s which

are hard to distill at all, since the original albums are so consistently strong.

That said, this collection is just not very good. The

sequencing is ridiculous (starting with the disposable

"Part Time Lover"?) and the track selection is questionable

(a lot of grade A tracks were left off so that...what?...they

could include "Ebony and Ivory"?) Ounce for ounce, Original

Musicquarium, a good if too-short compilation of the '70s

is a better bet. You could couple Original Musiquarium

with a '60s hits compilation (unfortunately, there's not

good definitive '60s set, but I guess you could go with

Greatest Hits Vol I [too bad Motown & Stevie haven't seen fit

to reissue the excellent 3LP "Looking Back" which DID cover

the '60s stuff properly) and get most of the essential Stevie

Wonder. But at that point, you'd still be missing the few

highlights from the 80s and 90s. For example, the brilliant

Overjoyed (good tune and dig that incredible phrasing) and

Stevie's terrific cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" which

is available on no other compilation but this one.

At the end of the day, the Stevie Wonder compilation catalogue

is still something of a mess (due in no small part to the

fact that Stevie has veto power over any Motown reissue), and

IMHO you're left with only two good alternatives: The 4 CD

"End of a Century", which is quite good, even if it is also

completely obvious in track selection, or the 2CD Original

Musiquarium. Or, heck, go back and buy the '70s albums, since

they are truly all worth owning in their entirty anyway, then

maybe break down and buy In Circle Square because you HAVE

to own Overjoyed. Maybe.