Talking Book

Made alongside Music of My Mind, it gave Wonder more independence from Motown and Berry Gordy. Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil were associate producers, handled the engineering and programmed the Moog, and Cecil suggested the title. Wonder played most of the instruments himself. The sleeve of the original pressings carried braille, with a message that stayed braille-only until the 2000 reissue: Here is my music, it is all I have to tell you how I feel.

Yvonne Wright wrote the lyrics for You've Got It Bad Girl and I Believe, and Syreeta Wright wrote those for Blame It on the Sun and Lookin' for Another Pure Love, with Wonder writing the music. Cecil recalled in 2019 that Yvonne would sit next to Wonder at the piano and whisper words into his ear. The jam behind Superstition began with Jeff Beck on drums and Wonder on piano. The album followed Wonder's 1972 tour with the Rolling Stones, and it was the first of his albums to reach the top of the R&B albums chart, where it stayed for three weeks.

It reached number three on the Billboard 200, and both Superstition and You Are the Sunshine of My Life topped the Hot 100. At the 16th Grammys it won Best Male Pop Vocal for Sunshine and Best Male R&B Vocal and Best R&B Song for Superstition, while Cecil and Margouleff won for Best Engineered Album. Vince Aletti called it exceptional in Rolling Stone in 1973, Robert Christgau called it closer to a perfect album, and J. D. Considine called it a pop tour de force. Rolling Stone placed it at number 59 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums.