Despite four new tracks on 1982's Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquariam I, and providing the bulk of the soundtrack to Gene Wilder's 1984 film Woman In Red, five years passed between Hotter Than July and Stevie Wonder's next full-length album of new material, In Square Circle.
The changes in popular music between 1980 and 1985 were evident from the opening track of the album, the US number one 'Part-Time Lover'. The song opens with a computer-based drum beat, reflecting the mid-80s fascination with beat machines and disdain for natural drums. Although Wonder had been using synthesizers and computers for over a decade, he had always balanced them with natural instrumentation.
With 'Part-Time Lover' this changed, and suggested for the first time that Wonder was no longer setting trends, but following them. The track did feature his signature vocal heroics, aided by Luther Vandross, and the up-tempo rhythm and energy made the track a more exciting affair than Wonder's previous single, 'I Just Called To Say I Love You'.
I Just Called To Say I Love You
In Square Circle continues along its artificial but energetic path with 'I Love You Too Much', the track's slightly passionless computer-groove being made even less inventive by Wonder's vocal acrobatics. 'Whereabouts' and 'Stranger On The Shore Of Love' subscribe to this formula, Wonder's always-soaring voice bringing the uninspired and lifeless instrumentation in to stark contrast.
The phenomenal success of 'I Just Called To Say I Love You', a single culled from the Woman In Red soundtrack and a number one smash on both sides of the Atlantic (in Britain it was Wonder's first solo number one), suggests the reasoning behind this lack of musical adventure.
The track remains one of Wonder's best known, but does not reflect the wealth of his talent. A slowly-paced and anaemic score is coupled with easy and slightly saccharine lyrics, which did go on to give him the biggest hit of his career. With this success in mind, In Square Circle is clearly aimed at the MOR market which propelled 'I Just Called To Say I Love You' to the top of the charts.
Overjoyed
In Square Circle does still provide moments of excitement and invention, however. 'Never In Your Sun' uses its drum machine in a more intriguing way than elsewhere on the record, using a slightly abnormal time signature which Wonder matches with his key-changing vocal.
'Go Home' brings with it the only use of horns on the album, Larry Gittens' trumpet and Bob Malach's saxophone adding another dimension to the continued dominance of the manufactured sounds. Allied with Wonder's vocoder-laden voice providing rhythm, the track hints at some invention within the record's overriding musical doctrine.
The highlight of the album comes with 'Overjoyed', the one track to shy away from computerised sounds (although the 'environmental percussion sounds' were recorded to a synthesizer). Led by Wonder's piano and Paul Riser's string arrangement, the ballad finds In Square Circle's best example of the music matching the soaring and emotive qualities of Wonder's voice. The use of crushed leaves and pebbles dropping in water add an extra dimension to the track and showcase Wonder's ability to find unusual sounds and bring melody out of them.
It's Wrong (Apartheid)
Following the success of 'Happy Birthday' on Hotter Than July, which helped establish a national holiday in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Wonder made his message songs more explicit with each passing album. On Woman In Red he warned against driving drunk, and for In Square Circle he turned to one of the hottest and most volatile social questions of the mid-80s, Apartheid.
Using Xhosa backing vocals, and by likening Apartheid to the Holocaust and slavery, Wonder states his case bluntly, which diminishes the song's message. Unlike 'Happy Birthday', which the audience bought in to on its melody before realising that it had a hidden message, 'It's Wrong (Apartheid)' confronts the listener and as such comes a jolt after the forty minutes of MOR soul-pop which has come before.
Wonder also tackles issues such as Jehovah's Witnesses ('Spiritual Walkers') and the moral decay of Hollywood ('Land Of La La'). Without the musical excitement that underpinned the anti-Nixon 'You Haven't Done Nothin'' or the street odyssey of 'Living For The City', the tracks fail to evoke the same anger and emotion as their forebears.
In Square Circle was an R&B number one and a pop number five, but was not as well received critically as most of his work had been for the preceding fifteen years. Although the album was melodic and ultimately inoffensive, it lacked the ambition and ingenuity which had set Wonder apart from the crowd in the 1970s, and ultimately came across as a letdown.
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