Innervisions is the sixteenth studio album by American singer, songwriter, and musician Stevie Wonder, released on August 3, 1973, by Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records.

A landmark recording of Wonder's "classic period",[4] the album has been regarded as completing his transition from the "Little Stevie Wonder" known for romantic ballads into a more musically mature, conscious, and grown-up artist.

(The Original New Timbral Orchestra) synthesizer system developed by Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff, and Innervisions became hugely influential on the future sound of commercial soul and black music.

Innervisions is widely considered by fans, critics, and colleagues to be one of Wonder's finest works and one of the greatest albums of all time.

It was ranked number 34 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2020 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

The album's closer, "He's Misstra Know-It-All", is thought by some to be a scathing attack on then-US President Richard Nixon, similar to Wonder's song "You Haven't Done Nothin'" from the following year.

Afterward, he fell asleep in the front seat of the car of his friend John Harris, who was snaking along a road just outside Durham, North Carolina behind a truck loaded high with logs.

He was bloodied and unconscious when he was pulled from the wrecked car, and lay in a coma caused by severe brain contusion for ten days.

[10] It was Wonder's friend and tour director Ira Tucker who first elicited some response from him: I remember when I got to the hospital in Winston-Salem...man, I couldn't even recognize him.

[10]Confirming Wonder's belief in destiny, Michael Sembello, Wonder's lead guitarist at the time, said: Well, I think he'd always had some awareness of the spiritual side of life.

... Stevie identifies himself as a gang and a genius, producing, composing, arranging, singing and, on several tracks, playing all the accompanying instruments.

... Vocally, he remains inventive and unafraid, he sings all the things he hears: rock, folk and all forms of Black music.

"[24] Musicians also showed consummate respect for the achievements of the album, with Roberta Flack saying to Newsweek that "It's the most sensitive of our decade ... it has tapped the pulse of the people.

In the UK, "Higher Ground" and "Living for the City" were released as singles, but only achieved modest success, reaching numbers 29 and 15, respectively.

Innervisions is considered by many fans, critics, and colleagues to be one of Stevie Wonder's finest works, and one of the greatest albums ever made.

[citation needed] The Washington Post critic Geoffrey Himes called it an exemplary release of the progressive soul development from 1968 to 1973.

[25] The album has been regarded as completing his transition from the "Little Stevie Wonder" known for romantic ballads into a more musically mature, conscious, and grown-up artist.

His canvas stretches from the tough realities of ghetto streets to the transcendent joy of spiritual acceptance, each rendered with an original, unique musical palette.

But this is all against the backdrop of the harsh social realities of America circa 1973, and nowhere does this conflict hit home more than in Wonder's magnum opus, 'Living for the City', a raw piece of modern blues on which Wonder played every instrument.

[29] The magazine wrote on the occasion of the initial list: Stevie Wonder may be blind, but he reads the national landscape, particularly regarding black America, with penetrating insight on Innervisions, the peak of his 1972-73 run of albums–including Music of My Mind and Talking Book.

Fusing social realism with spiritual idealism, Wonder brings expressive color and irresistible funk to his synth-based keyboards on "Too High" (a cautionary anti-drug song) and "Higher Ground" (which echoes Martin Luther King Jr.'s message of transcendence).

[30] Innervisions track listingAll tracks are written by Stevie Wonder"Too High" "Visions" "Living for the City" "Golden Lady" "Higher Ground" "Jesus Children of America" "All in Love Is Fair" "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" "He's Misstra Know-It-All" Technical personnel positions positions