Look Around/Do Yourself A Favour/Think Of Me As Your Soldier/Something Out Of The Blue/If You Really Love Me/I Wanna Talk To You/Take Up A Course In Happiness/Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer/Sunshine In Their Eyes
Where I’m Coming From was a transitional album from Motown star Stevie Wonder in which he begins to move away from his early pop style towards introducing a more funky soul sound into his music. (US:62)
“The music behind the lyrics is poppy-funk. There are a couple of pretty strong melodies but most of it is rather unmemorable. There was a lot of pretty great funk being made at this time which this doesn’t measure up to.”
“Obviously not as incredible as what would follow but you can hear the germ of Stevie's classic 70s style in some of the songs here. This is a classic transitional album, with one foot in his early Little Stevie style but also clearly flirting with funk and more complex themes.”
“His transitional record, released just as he was truly free from Motown's dictating, but still when his freedom was so fresh that he didn't quite yet know what he wanted to do. There's pleasure in the simple 60s type material, and this is really the last time Wonder touched on it so much.”
“At this point he has still got his feet in the past and some of these adult songs sound compromised by the traditional arrangements given to them. However talent will out, and there's more here to like than dislike, even if none of it is of the quality of the albums that followed.”
“Where I'm Coming From as a whole is a curiously uneven and disjointed album, with an uneasy mix of the revolutionary and tentative, and the innovative and conservative, mixing some of his best music to date with some of his near worst.” “This is the record where Stevie throws everything against the wall and sees what sticks, and the truth is not much does.”
“It starts with the haunting Look Around, and it is clear that Wonder wanted to set the creative tone and conscious lyrics early on. Do Yourself A Favour is a funky social commentary that repeatedly tells us ‘educate your mind’. Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer is a forgotten classic; Wonder's music and his metaphorical lyrics are so emotional the song is literally heartbreaking.”
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