Stevie Wonder - A Time To Love
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CD Details
Artist: Stevie WonderBrand: *
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2005-10-18
Music Label: Motown
Product features:
- WONDER STEVIE A TIME 2 LOVE
- If Your Love Cannot Be Moved
- Sweetest Somebody I Know
- Moon Blue
- From the Bottom of My Heart
- Please Don't Hurt My Baby
- How Will I Know
- My Love Is On Fire
- Passionate Raindrops
- Tell Your Heart I Love You
- True Love
- Shelter In the Rain
- So What The Fuss
- Can't Imagine Love Without You
- Positivity
- A Time To Love
Music reviews of A Time To Love
Music Review: Do We Really Know How Great This CD Is? I Don't Think So!
Rating: 4 Stars
I wrote my original review of this cd in Oct. of 2005. After 6 months I listened to it again and realized I'd missed a number of very important elements. Last month I tried to re-write my original review but i must have pushed the delete button by mistake (remember Stevie's the genius not me!). So here I am writing yet another review for this great peice of music. I LOVE THIS CD!! There is so much going on in it that you will not catch everything in one or two listenings. This is a work from a mature artist who has always been the optimist yet you can hear and feel the frustration in the key songs. I will review it as I usually do, song by song but I have to start by saying one thing: There is an underlying element that links several songs together, some of them very surprising. The theme of the CD is love but not just the regular stuff between 2 people but love of your brothers around the world and the elements of love. Most importantly respect and responsibility. We are resposible or eveything that takes place in our lives and those other lives around us. In the title song you have 4 main elements going on. The theme of love, the general rythym, the crystaline chimes/cymbals and the international percussion (Indian, Arabic, African, Latin). Try to notice these elements as you listen to the CD. And now, as promised, let's review the CD song by song,
If Your Love Cannot Be Moved: This one starts out with Doug E. Fresh sputtering out a cool rythym that glides into the main rythym of the song. Stevie is joined on this one by gospel great Kim Burrell and with this duet you can hear how far reaching Stevie's vocal influences have gone. He is the originator of the "quick throat" form of singing, which is the way about 90% of not only R&B artist but just about all pop and jazz music artist sing. The song speaks of taking responsibility for your actions. "Can you show your face or are you fearful of it shown?" is one of the lines. As powerful as the lyrics are Stevie still shows that he has hope for us and believes that just the fact that we're human being means that in our hearts, there is good. He shows this in a line that says "You can't wave a sign that spells evil and feel truly proud". Over all this is a pumping opening song and a great example of what is to follow on this great CD. The Sweetest Somebody I Know: Another reviewer said it best about this song. He said "If Happier Than The Morning Sun" is a young couple just discovering love, "The Sweetest Somebody I Know" is that same couple 30+ years later. The couple is still in love and the wonderment is still there. With it's bossa-nova beat and beautiful melody, this is a great song. Playful it ends with one of Stevie's kids busting into the recording session screaming "Alright, that's enough!". Which brings up another point on this CD. Stevie actually seems to be having fun on it. It's as if by recording his deepest and most powerful thoughts out to us, he feels freedom to chuckle a little bit. Moon Blue: A masterpeice. This is musically different for Stevie. The closest song in his past to this one is "Ribbon In The Sky" but that great song doesn't even come close to it. Coupled with beautiful lyrics and a nice piano solo, "Blue" is smooth jazz but with beautiful poetry to boot. It is probably the best mid-tempo love song on the disc. Only matched or MAYBE followed very closely by "True Love". Stevie again playfully tries to hit a high note in falsetto and doesn't reach. The giggle that follows speaks probably even more volumes than the lyrics that proceeded it. Listen, I mean REALLY listen to the magic that is "Moon Blue". From The Bottom Of My Heart: This is "I Just Called To Say I Love You" part 2. And I mean that in a good way! If you read any of my older reviews you'll know that I LOATHE the original IJCTSILY. He did a live version on the Natural Wonder CD that I loved though (See that review to know why). Think of IJCTSILY and you think of an 80's standard, very popish sing-a-long. This song has a lot of those elements but to a better extent. The title is taken from a line from IJCTSILY, the melody is very popish and I can see Stevie in concert having the entire crowd sing the "doo, doo, doo, doo" part of the chorus. There is even a line in the song that states, "Season will come just as seasons will go..." IJCTSILY revolved around the seasons of the year. This is Stevie's gentle way of slapping us disbelievers in the face for hating IJCTSILY. It is also one of the songs on the CD where he sneaks in one of the elements in "A Time 2 Love". Throughout the song you hear Latin/Indian percussion that helps perculate the song along. This song is better than it's prequel in so many ways. Thanks for that oh so gentle slap in the face Stevie. Please Don't Hurt My Baby: This song is about cheating and the threat of getting caught. It's linked with the title song of the CD by it's theme of responsibility. If you don't cheat, you don't have to worry about getting caught. Which brings us to the most ironic part of the song, the title itself. The subjects of the song are crying "please don't hurt my baby" to their lovers who are threatening to tell on them. It's THEM themselves who have already hurt their "baby" by cheating on them. The message is coupled with a mournfully soulful chorus that makes you want to bust out singing. Have fun with this song but also hear the message it's giving you. How Will I know: Another jazzy tune where Stevie is joined by his daughter Aeisha. Yes, that Aeisha last heard crying and playing in the bath water on "Isn't She Lovely". She's all grownup now and has a lovely voice too. This is a minor song on the disc but with it's jazz influence it's still very, very nice. My Heart Is On Fire: Another minor yet very good effort on the disc. We get yet more jazzy sounds and more beautiful poetry on this one. It also has a nice flute solo by Hubert Laws. One of the most important parts of the song is the end. It ends with chimes (Another element from AT2L). These chimes melt into the opening cymbals of.... Passionate Raindrops: Another classic. This is "Overjoyed" meets "Summer Soft". With peotic lyrics, a beautiful melody and chorus and soaring strings, this song will lift and take your heart away. Stevie also uses a little studio magic to make his voice sound gurgglely in some parts to coincide with the rain/water part of the song. Musicians, check out the drum part of the song. It's very interesting. Tell Your Heart I Love You: From it's funky, gutbucket intro to the quick desolving way it ends, this song is fun and musically interesting. It's about how the love one feels for another person makes everything else none existent or unimportant. The mid section has a funky feel that's coupled with yet another link to AT2L, the Indian tabla. And the vocal in this middle section also soars. Don't skip over this one. True Love: The Classic Stevie Wonder Ballad gets a jazzy twist here. Revovling around the tricks love can play on us and highlighted by a nice sax part and an inventive drum part, "True Love" is a quintesential Stevie love song. With 4 jazz influenced cuts on this CD this brings me to yet another important part of it, as with many prominent musicians, as he's getting older, Stevie is leaning oh so closer to his roots of Motown (represented better in a couple of songs) and jazz. This is a GREAT song. Shelter In The Rain: Written originally after the untimely death of both his ex-wife Syreeta Wright and his brother Calvin, Stevie later dedicated this song to the victims of hurricane Katrina. It's a sentimental and grandiose song that honestly I can take or leave. I feel it as another song from Stevie's "I want to save the world" era that he's been in for the last decade and a half. BUT, you cannot ignore the hearfelt emotion in his voice. So What The Fuss: Another highlight on the CD. Another reviewer said that this song sounded like a rip-off of old George Clinton stuff. Has this guy heard "Say It 'Cause I Love Having You Around" from Music of My Mind? That was the song that Clinton heard and borrowed from to hone his patented sound throughout the 70's. With a great minimalist guitar part by Prince and added vocals by En Vogue this is great funkified funk that can't be messed with. With lyrics like "If I gotta get up early in the morning for a job interview and I forget to set the stupid alarm shame on me",the song is yet another cut about being responsible for one's actions and with the ending giggle from Stevie yet another sign that he's having a great time making great music. Positivity: Yet another highlight of the CD, this song is done in the style of old Motown, moreso, the ABC era Jackson 5 sound. This song includes lyrics I live by. Everyday you wake up is a gift from God. It's also an opportunity for not only things to change in your life but also for you to help make them change. Remember, this CD IS about love and ALL the responsibilities it involves, and this is the ultimate! Don't just sit there and complain about how screwed up the world is, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!! His daughter Aeisha helps with the vocals again on this one and it helps make the song a very danceble message song. A must hear. A Time 2 Love: The title track and the song that makes all of the other reacurring elements throughout the CD make sense. It also features India.Irie on the vocals plus all of those Indian, Arabic, African and Latin percussion melding together to make a beautiful sound. The international drums also lend to the idea that this is an internaltional CD with an international message. Because of the percussion you may overlook the strings in the background. Don't! They are very beautifully and emotionally done. Stevie's lyrics become very powerful at the end, "When the mothers in the world don't want to see their children die anymore, then the wars will stop! That's right, they'll stop!" No holds barred here. In other words, when we REALLY are tired of all the injustices in the world we will get together and MAKE IT STOP! So why all the percussion? Time is the rythym of life. Just as the musicians in the song are playing in different rythyms in the same song, we may each be living life in different steps (places and cultures) but we're all in the same space, time and world. A Time 2 Love is an epic work done by one of the most important artist of the last half of the 20th century. I knew it wouldn't be a smash hit because as i mentioned in my first review, the general public is too busy listening to the materialistic and oversexed pop and hip hop of today to even notice this great work. And as I mentioned before, I hope Stevie doesn't get discouraged about it because we need MORE music like this from him. WE LOVE YOU STEVIE WONDER! KEEP ON KEEPING ON!
Description of A Time To Love
Japanese pressing of A Time To Love, which is the 28th studio album from the legendary singer/songwriter, includes the single 'So What The Fuss' and features guest appearances from Kim Burrell, Aisha Morris, India Arie, Prince & En Vogue. This pressing includes a Japanese only bonus track which you download from PC sight with password in the package.The bonus track is limited, and you can access it till Apr, 2006. Motown. 2005.Stevie Wonder took more than ten years to give a studio successor to Conversation Peace but A Time to Love feels fresher than we had any right to expect after such a long wait. For starters, the guests are well picked: They include Bonnie Raitt (playing slide guitar on "Tell Your Heart I Love You"), gospel singer Kim Burrell (on "If Your Heart Cannot Be Moved"), India Arie (on the title track), and Wonder's own daughter, Aisha Morris (whom listeners may remember as the source of her dad's delight in Songs in the Key of Life--"Isn't She Lovely"). Last but not least, Prince plays elegant, minimal funky guitar and En Vogue perform swoony backup vocals on first single "So What the Fuss," a classic pared-down dance number graced with Wonder's trademark socially conscious lyrics. It's on tracks like these--sounding as if they could be from anytime between 1975 and now--that Wonder shows he's still got the golden touch. He remains a sterling melodicist ("Moon Blue" is a killer ballad), and the harmonica intro on "From the Bottom of My Heart" is among the loveliest he's created. Of course a Wonder album wouldn't be complete without saccharine ballads, and he delivers there too ("Passionate Raindrops," "Can't Imagine Love Without You"). Still, this is a solid effort from one of America's premier artists. --Elisabeth Vincentelli
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