365 – New Music Daily

A true fucking masterpiece. Many will say that Stevie’s best album is Songs in the Key of Life, but Innervisions takes the #1 spot for me, and is up there for my favorite albums of all time, partially due to the bond I shared with this album traveling.

The album starts off with the funky, groovy, Too High, with a fat bassline that drives the whole song along with beautiful backing vocals throughout. Stevie’s vocals match the keys, and the song is a great intro song working double as a great transition into the soothing Visions, with beautiful lyrics to match the tranquil, but elegant melodies.

Living for the City is an incredibly powerful track marked with a mid-song interlude of a man arriving in New York City, only to get arrested nearly instantaneously. Stevie comes in with some of my favorite vocals on the album afterwards, and the song is written in a fashion that tells a succinct story, painting a clear image in any listener’s mind.

This transitions immediately into Golden Lady, which has some of my favorite vocals on the entire album, right into Higher Ground, which doesn’t need much of a write-up, it’s undeniable. Jesus Children of America, which had to grow on me a bit, but the build of the song is hard to resist.

The next two songs, All in Love is Fair and Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing, are two of Stevie’s best, the former being one of the best ballads of all time (yes in my opinion) and the next being one of the best grooving songs. He’s Misstra Know-It-All is probably my least favorite song on the album, but the vocal performance makes up for it, as does the messaging towards Nixon!

Not only is this one of my favorite albums of all time, but objectively a case can be made that it is up there with the best ever. The fact that Stevie was 23 when this thing came out – and played nearly every instrument on it while pairing it with some incredibly written songs – is nothing short of remarkable. Good fucking music.