It's only when I stop dancing and singing all around the room that it occurs to me Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind may not be the great album of the year. It's certainly the best thing to come out of Motown since Marvin Gaye's What's Goin' On and perhaps even more impressive as a personal achievement, considering Wonder not only wrote, arranged and produced the entire album but played every instrument…. Everything seems to fall quite comfortably within Steve's grasp and the effect is both satisfying and exciting. It's satisfying if you're willing to overlook a few flaws, some of which have cropped up in his other recent work. Most would fall under the heading Self-Indulgence: a tendency towards gimmickry that often eludes his fine sense of control.

[Wonder] seems to have come into his own as a songwriter. His lyrics are generally simple, playful, unpretentious; even...