CoronaVinyl Day 452 (W): Number 1's by Stevie Wonder

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "W," and for the last week, I've been listening to Stevie Wonder's 2007 compilation, Number 1's.  In 2020, Target released a limited edition 2-LP vinyl version, with red vinyl, and one of my spawn was nice enough to buy it for me for my birthday last year.

I will look past the fact that the apostrophe in the album title is grammatically incorrect -- the man is blind, after all -- and say that I definitely enjoyed listening to this record.  And who wouldn't?  It's Stevie Wonder, one of the true musical geniuses of the last 60 years.  His career is ridiculously expansive, and I always find it amazing that he is younger than both of my parents.

As the album title alludes to, this is a collection of Wonder's #1 hits throughout the years, on either the Billboard Hot 100 or other Billboard singles charts (R&B Singles, Adult Contemporary, etc.), starting with "Fingertips, Part 2," which he recorded in June 1962, a month after he turned 12 (!), to 2005's "What the Fuss" (featuring Prince and En Vogue).  Over his career, he has had 8 #1s on the Billboard Hot 100, 19 #1s on the Billboard R&B Singles chart, and 6#1s on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart (with some songs topping more than one of those charts).  This album doesn't have all of them, but it has a good cross section of one of the most sustained musical careers anyone has ever had, from the early Motown poppy soul days to the more socially focused funk and soul of the '70s to the pop of the '80s (and that one song from 2005).

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Uptight (Everything Is Alright)"
Side 1 goes from 1963 to 1973.  "Uptight (Everything Is Alright)," released in 1965, is one of those songs that puts me in a good mood.  It was Wonder's second Top 5 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 (#3) and second #1 on the Billboard R&B charts, and it was released at a time when Motown was having doubts about his viability, since, I kid you not, his voice was changing.  You know, because he was 15 when this song was released.  What's even crazier is that the song's co-writer, Sylvia Moy, completed the lyrics and brought them to the recording session, but forgot to bring a Braille copy for Wonder, so when the song was recorded, she sang a line and then Wonder repeated them as he heard them.  That's how the song was recorded.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Living For The City"
Side 2 is definitely the funk side, taking us from 1973 to 1976.  I love all the songs, but I went with "Living For The City," off of 1973's Innervisions.  The album and the song marked a change in lyrical content from poppier topics to social and political issues.  This song is about the systemic racism that faced Black Americans in the 1970s, telling the story of a young Black man from Mississippi who takes a bus to New York, where he is framed for a crime he didn't commit, convicted, and sentenced to ten years in prison.  There are various city sounds (buses, voices, hustle and bustle, etc.) that are mixed in with the music that gives it even that much more of a real feel.  My only gripe is that the version on the Number 1's album is the single version, so it's only 3:41, instead of the 7:23 version on Innervisions.

Favorite Song on Side 3:  "Sir Duke"
Side 3 brings us from the late '70s funk and soul era to the mid '80s pop and Wonder's biggest worldwide hit, "I Just Called To Say I Love You."  "Sir Duke" is from his epic 1976 album Songs In the Key of Life, and it's a tribute to jazz legend Duke Ellington, who died in 1974.

Favorite Song on Side 4:  "Skeletons"
The last side takes us from "Part-Time Lover," which hit #1 in 1985, to the aforementioned "So What the Fuss" in 2005.  I went with "Skeletons," from Wonder's 1987 album Characters.  It's a funky song, but in the '80s funk sense (i.e., a lot of synthesizers and electronic drums), and it's about people with skeletons in their closets.