Riffiter on Songs in the Key of Life

Seventeen songs on two LPs, four more on a 7-inch because Stevie wouldn't cut anything, and the sprawl is the argument for it. A tighter record would have lost "Contusion" and "Ngiculela", and those are where you hear a 26-year-old with full control of his contract finding out what he can do with it. "Pastime Paradise" and "Village Ghetto Land" are as bleak as anything Motown put out, and they sit a few tracks from "Isn't She Lovely", a baby's bath recorded as a six-minute jam. "Sir Duke" still sounds like a horn section running downhill. The one real weakness is "Have a Talk with God", which stalls. The four songs from the sessions that came out this week don't change the verdict.