Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Stevie Wonder Available Now
Although this commentary was probably written about ten fifteen years ago, in my mind nothing about the album has changed much. I still listen to it regularly and enjoy it immensely.
It has a strange magic which for some reason causes me to play it more than any other Stevie Wonder album. That is really saying something, considering how good Talking Book, Innervisions and Songs from the Key of Life are.
Over the course of the last year or two, for the first time in my life I’ve really gotten to know the album well, having found a CD at a local store to play in the car.
I’ve listened to Fulfillingness’ First Finale scores of times and now see that it is some of the best work Stevie Wonder ever did, right up there with Innervisions and miles ahead of any other Stevie Wonder album.
To my mind the best songs on the album are the quieter, more heartfelt and emotional ones, not the rockers or funky workouts. My personal favorites on side one are: Smile Please. Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away, Too Shy to Say and Creepin’, which, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, are all the songs that weren’t hits.
On side two the two slowest songs are the ones I now like best: It Ain’t No Use & They Won’t Go When I Go (famously and brilliantly covered by George Michael on Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 in 1990).
If you decide to take one of our Hot Stampers home, see if you don’t find something very special about the tracks I’ve noted above.