be advancing with weapons. These images contrast with the upbeat and positive mood of the music on most of the album—"Happy Birthday" included. Exceptions are the few songs about romantic turmoil ("Rocket Love", "I Ain't Gonna Stand For It", "Lately") and the socially critical "Cash In Your Face", which protests racial housing discrimination. Critical reception In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, Stephen Holden said Hotter than July proved Wonder was still "our most gifted pop muralist" because of his evocative, unique synthesis of pop and African elements. The album was voted the eighth best of 1980 in The Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. Robert Christgau, that poll's creator, ranked the album eighteenth on his own year-end list and wrote in a retrospective review that, while "Master Blaster" and perhaps "Happy Birthday" were the only "great Stevie here", the pleasure with which Wonder performed the songs was evident in "his free-floating melodicism and his rolling overdrive, his hope and his cynicism". In a review in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), J. D. Considine called the album "buoyantly tuneful" and said fans viewed it as a return to form for Wonder after the commercial disappointment of Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.Record World'' said of "Did I Hear You Say You Love Me" that "With its funky dance beat and Stevie's soulful vocal en- thusiasm, this cut could easily have been the first hit single" from the album. Track listing All songs written, produced and arranged by Stevie Wonder except where noted. Side one "Did I Hear You Say You Love Me" – 4:07 "All I Do" (music: Wonder; lyrics: Wonder, Clarence Paul, Morris Broadnax) – 5:06 "Rocket Love" – 4:39 "I Ain't Gonna Stand for It" – 4:39 "As If You Read My Mind" – 3:37 Side two "Master Blaster (Jammin')" – 5:07 "Do Like You" – 4:25 "Cash in Your Face" – 3:59 "Lately" – 4:05 "Happy Birthday" – 5:57 Personnel Stevie Wonder – lead vocals, synthesizer , drums , Fender Rhodes , bass synthesizer , clavinet , background vocals , ARP , vocoder , piano , harpsichord , celesta , keyboards , harmonica , cabasa , bells , handclaps , flute synthesizer , bass melodian Nathan Watts – bass guitar , background vocals Benjamin Bridges – guitars , background vocals Dennis Davis – drums Earl DeRouen – percussion , background vocals Isaiah Sanders