Hotter Than July

Hotter Than July

Stevie Wonder

Motown Records, 1980

REVIEW BY: Jason Warburg

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 01/20/2003

Now that I'm firmly ensconsed on the wrong side of forty - and,truthfully, starting to enjoy it - it seems I'm noticing more andmore how important little pieces of history can get shoved aside bycircumstances or just the simple passage of time. How many youngrecord (oops, CD) buyers today know that Sting used to be in aband? Or that Jakob Dylan's dad is kind of famous, too? Or thatbarely a generation ago, Martin Luther King Day was not a nationalholiday, but rather a controversial proposal that also became thesubject of a song by one of the 1970s' most successful musicalacts?

Stevie Wonder was quite possibly the most gifted, prolific andserious-minded artist working the r & b and pop charts in the'70s. On classic albums like Innervisions and Talking Book, he combined philosophical, socially-consciouslyrics with grooving, keyboard-based funk, lightening things up inbetween with his distinctly romantic, even sensuous ballads. Afterpeaking with 1976's double-album opus Songs in the Key of Life, though, Wonder took most of therest of the decade off from music. Aside from a somewhat oddsoundtrack album, Wonder didn't issue another album of new musicfor four years.

Hotter Than July arrived in 1980 complete with all theelements that had made Wonder such a unique artist - the thoughtfullyrics, the complex arrangements, the multiplicity of musicalapproaches. The pulsating "Did I Hear You Say You Love Me" kicksthings off with one of the most danceable grooves Wonder everconstructed, which he tops off with one of the most exuberantvocals of his career. "All I Do" follows like a sequel, the gentlypleading seduction at the party's end, covering the same lyricalground but in the context of a ballad as lush and romantic asyou're ever likely to hear.

Born romantic that he is, though, Wonder doesn't shy away fromexploring darker shades of emotion and the inevitable tanglesreal-life relationships get into. In the troubled ballad "RocketLove," he veers from ecstasy to agony as his romantic entreatiesare repeatedly rejected; in "I Ain't Gonna Stand For It," a steadygroove and clever metaphors can't disguise the simmering fury of acuckolded husband. And "Lately" is possibly the most affectingballad of his career, a self-interrogation in which he puts theblame squarely on himself for the fragile state of a relationshiphe senses is crumbling around him.