Rating : - I Just Called To Say I Love You!
After entering the 80's with Hotter Than July that gave him great success and performing the massive hit "Ebony And Ivory" on with Paul McCartney (for his album Tug Of War that reached #1 on both sides of the Atlantic Stevie Wonder's next move was another soundtrack album (his second after "Secret Life of Plants") but this time around it was to a blockbuster film and all of the songs were radio friendly pop songs, not instrumentals other then "It's More Then You" that wasn't written or performed by him. It was also partly a duet album with Dionne Warwick, where 2 songs were duets and 1 song solely performed by Ms Warwick. All of those 3 songs were rather forgetable ballads though. The rest are Stevie Wonder originals apart from the aformentioned instrumental from Ben Bridges. First out is the title track "Woman in Red" a synth-pop song that basically just deal with the woman in red from the film. But then it comes, "I Just Called To Say I Love You", the one reason to purchase this album I guess. The mammoth hit that was bigger then the film and ironically it became Stevie Wonder's biggest hit of all time reaching #1 in most countries in 1984 and ranked as the #3 biggest hit of the entire decade. This amazing loves song is enough reason to to own the album. The rest of the songs are called "Love Light In Flight" and "Don't Drive Drunk" both minor single hits with pretty good 80's synth pop arrangements. After the amazing work that Stevie did in the 70's where it felt like he was developing his style for each album this can only be seen as a letdown. I haven't seen the film but it was a romantic comedy and it was not such a big success either. It's hard to imagine one of the biggest and most intelligent artist deciding to make a soundtrack to it. About half of the songs are good here but it never feels like one album. If you're interested in this album it's probably cause of "I Just Called", and owning the album where it appears could be fun for Stevie Wonder fans but otherwise just buy a "Greatest Hits Album" like Stevie Wonder - The Definitive Collection and you'll get more for your money.