Those who enjoy ballads like “Overjoyed” will appreciate “Moon Blue,” a sultry jazz-influenced number where he shows off his full vocal range. An unabashed romantic, Wonder performs almost old-fashioned love songs like “True Love,” where he wishes to find his soulmate; another cut, “How Will I Know,” expresses largely the same sentiment. On the latter track he duets with his daughter Aisha, best known as the inspiration behind “Isn’t She Lovely.”
Prefer his funky tracks? Look no further than “Please Don’t Hurt My Baby,” a battle-of-the-sexes song that warns against infidelity. Toward the end, the male and female backup singers (partially composed by En Vogue) trade lines, warning each other of the consequences of cheating. Everyone, including Wonder, obviously had great fun recording this track. “So What the Fuss” continues the “Superstition”-like funk, and features Prince on guitar and En Vogue singing backup. Similar to “If Your Love Cannot Be Moved,” he cautions against blaming others for your actions. What a joy to hear him return to his activist roots!
Another interesting song, “Shelter in the Rain,” originally addressed the death of Wonder’s ex-wife. After Hurricane Katrina, the song gained new meaning about providing shelter from adversity; consequently, Wonder donated proceeds from the single to the Wonder Foundation for Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts. This track is nicely balanced with “Positivity,” a perfect summarization of Wonder’s eternal optimism. Once again, daughter Aisha provides backup support as he describes his life philosophy: “I'm not saying sometimes life can't be rough/But never to the point of me saying I've had enough/Long as my heart beats I ain't giving up.” An infectious beat punctuates these words, making the track irresistible.
A Time to Love ends with a tour de force: the title track, a rallying cry for peace. Dueting with India Arie, Wonder speaks out against the war with lyrics such as the following:
Article comments
1 - Al Sussman
Unfortunately, the fate of "A Time For Love" is pretty typical of new albums by senior/heritage artists, as hard as it is to think of Stevie Wonder as an older artist. The kind of terrestrial radio stations that might play this would rather just play Stevie's old hits and, as Kit mentioned, when Stevie did the traditional radio promotion tour, the deejays barely gave this album lip service while clearly preferring to talk about Stevie's past glories. Next time, he might well want to use the non-traditional venues Paul McCartney used last year to market his "Memory Almost Full" album. Quality-wise, that album was comparable to "A Time For Love" but was a much bigger seller.
2 - Bill King
It's a sad commentary on where pop music has ended up when Stevie Wonder is out of fashion ...