Songs in the Key of Life is the eighteenth studio album by American singer, songwriter and musician Stevie Wonder.

[17] The album was released on September 28, 1976, after a two-year wait as a double LP album plus a bonus 7-inch EP titled A Something's Extra (which featured "Saturn", "Ebony Eyes", "All Day Sucker", and "Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)"), and included a 24-page lyric and credit booklet.

[15][18] Wonder recorded the great majority of the album at Crystal Sounds in Hollywood, with Gary Olazabal and studio owner John Fischbach as engineers.

During a period when Crystal Sounds had a prior obligation to record another artist, the production team traveled to the Hit Factory in New York City to work for about six weeks, but only used one basic track from those sessions.

"[20] Bassist Nathan Watts remembered getting home at 3 am after very long hours in the studio, only to have Wonder phone to request him return immediately to help with "I Wish".

Among the musicians who contributed were some legendary figures of R&B, soul, and jazz music: Herbie Hancock played Fender Rhodes on "As", George Benson played electric guitar on "Another Star", and Minnie Riperton and Deniece Williams added backing vocals on "Ordinary Pain".

Mike Sembello is a prominent personality throughout the album, playing guitar on several tracks and also co-writing "Saturn" with Wonder.

At the time of the album's release, reporters and music critics, and everyone who had worked on it, traveled to Long View Farm, a recording studio in Massachusetts, for a press preview.

The album was viewed as a guided tour through a wide range of musical styles and the life and feelings of the artist.

[29] In The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll, it was voted as the best album of the year.

A satellite hook-up was arranged so he could accept his Grammys from across the sea, but when Bette Midler announced the results during the ceremony, the audience was only able to see Wonder at a phone smiling and giving thanks,[31] as the video signal was poor and the audio inaudible.

In Canada, it achieved the same feat, entering the RPM national albums chart at number one on October 16.

During those eleven weeks, Songs in the Key of Life managed to block four other albums from reaching the top: Boz Scaggs’s Silk Degrees, Earth, Wind & Fire's Spirit, Led Zeppelin's soundtrack for The Song Remains the Same and Rod Stewart's A Night on the Town.

The follow-up single, the jazzy "Sir Duke", was released in March 1977 and surpassed the commercial success of "I Wish".

Released during the second half of 1977, as sales for the album began to decline, the last two singles from Songs in the Key of Life failed to match the success of "I Wish" and "Sir Duke".

Though not released as a single, "Isn't She Lovely" received wide radio airplay and became one of Wonder's most popular songs.

David Parton's cover of the song, recorded and released soon after Wonder's album, gave him a top 10 hit in the UK in early 1977.

Music Playlist Blog, using a formula that combined four parameters – "Album Staying Power Value + Sales Value + Critical Rating Value + Grammy Award Value".

Elton John said, in his notes about Wonder for Rolling Stone's 2003 list of "The Immortals – The Greatest Artists of All Time" (in which Wonder was ranked number 15): "Let me put it this way: wherever I go in the world, I always take a copy of Songs in the Key of Life.

"[39] In an interview with Ebony magazine, Michael Jackson called Songs in the Key of Life his favorite Stevie Wonder album.

In December 2013, Wonder did a live concert performance of the entire album at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles.

[45] CD reissues from 2000 to the present day now contain all four bonus tracks at the end of Disc two, thus reverting to the original running order of the 1976 2xLP+7" first edition issue.