STEVIE WONDER Fulfillingness' First Finale (Tamla)

Stevie Wonder’s new album, with Sly Stone’s Small Talk, may be the first step in a new direction for avant-boogaloo; it is formula avant-boogaloo. The characteristics which distinguish Sly (for instance) from Kool & the Gang have dwindled, Sly offering us no more than a weird tic built around his own perversion of his beat. Earth, Wind & Fire, War, Kool & the Gang — all of them know how now. Why should we bother if Sly doesn’t?