I have had this album for most of my life and never really listened to it until doing this excercise. This whole project has been such a rewarding experience. I highly recommend it. My appreciation for different types of music has expanded ten fold, and those of you that know me know it was already pretty broad. As I said before, I have always been a fan of Stevie's, but saw him more as a singles artist not an album artist. And as I said before, that is a way wrong belief. This is a long album, maybe it could have been tightened up a little. There are a few songs that go on a bit long. Maybe the whole "less is more' would apply here. But, at the time there were very few people releasing double albums of studio material, even today it's not done often. For good reason, it's a long time to devote to something and the material need to keep the listener engaged. Well this certainly keeps you engaged. The material covers all types of topics from religon to poverty to love and death and of course life. The thing about Stevie is that he is one of the few artist that can sing about God and I don't feel preached to. The other thing about Stevie is that there is no one who can lay out a groove like him. The relentless funk of Sir Duke and I Wish which cleary demonstrates Stevie's supurb use of phrasing. To take the word 'ever' in the line, "Why did those days ever have to go" and beak it up into two seperate words was absolutely genius. The beauty of As and Isn't She Lovely. The later is one that could have been trimmed down. I have never liked Stevie's use of talking and background noise in those little scetches he sticks in the middle of tracks. They just seem unnecessary and tend to make an otherwise timeless classic sound dated.
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