Stevie Wonder – Hotter Than July

What more can be said about the last hurrah of Stevie's classic period? While it doesn't exactly have the resounding strength of its high-water mark predecessors, there's a certain freshness about Hotter than July that has stood up five decades later. It's the kind of album great artists make once they've settled into their facility and wring out the last few droplets of their creative well to make something contemporary and refreshingly familiar at once. Some of the traits that would betray his later work surface (the lack of ambition/innovation/edge, some adult contemporary sentimentality, processed production values, etc.), but Wonder's pop craftsmanship is the star here. Who else can juggle an array of musical styles while coming up with snappy, infectious hooks in such an inventive way as Stevie Wonder? To effortlessly bounce from a funky reggae ode to world peace per the philosophies of the then-ailing Bob Marley ("Master Blaster (Jammin')") to the country-meets-R&B of "Ain't Gonna Stand for It" to the heartfelt pop balladry of "Lately" to the disco-leaning soul groove of "All I Do" is staggering. Oh, aside from the great music here, am I the only one who adores the abrupt song-to-song transitions on this classic?

My copy of this original 1980 pressing sounds fantastic. Seeing that this was a full digital recording, as indicated in the album's liner notes, everything just has so much vibrancy and is very dynamic. I own a recent vinyl 2016 (or 2017) vinyl reissue of this classic, but I can't imagine it bettering the mastering of the original pressing. I haven't really heard a bad CD reissue of this album, either.