Innervisions

Wonder sang lead and played piano, drums, Moog bass, clavinet and TONTO, with Margouleff and Cecil programming the synthesizers. Billboard noted that he played all the instruments on seven of the nine tracks, and Pitchfork's Craig Jenkins wrote that it was his first full-length album without any co-writers or covers. Cecil recalled teasing Wonder about writing another bloody love song, to push him toward songs with bite. For the last verse of Living for the City, the pair kept interrupting takes to draw out a gruffer, angrier vocal. Wonder became hoarse and upset, and they got the take. Cecil said of the song, "It was just him and TONTO."

The nine songs range from drug abuse in Too High and systemic racism in Living for the City to the ballads All in Love Is Fair and Golden Lady. All in Love Is Fair began on 10 November 1972 at 2:30 a.m., with Wonder at the acoustic piano and Scott Edwards on guitar. Basic tracking for Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing took place on 22 August 1972. Barbra Streisand's version of All in Love Is Fair was a 1974 single, and Incognito's cover of Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing was a European hit in 1992.

It debuted on the Billboard chart on 18 August 1973 at number 85 and reached number four on 22 September, while Cashbox had it at number one near the end of the year. It was number one on the Soul LPs chart, and it was his first top 10 album in Britain, at number eight. Higher Ground reached number four in the United States and Living for the City number eight, and Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing, released in March 1974, reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number two on the Soul Singles chart. At the 1974 Grammys it won Album of the Year and Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording, and Living for the City won Best R&B Song. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Clayton Riley, in the New York Times in 1973, wrote of "the sound of what is real." Roberta Flack told Newsweek it was the most sensitive album of the decade. Jon Tiven of Circus was less impressed and complained that it had no song as strong as Superstition. Rolling Stone ranked it number 23 in 2003 and number 34 in 2020.