Perhaps “the chills” or “goosebumps” or the capacity to induce tears (whether it is an insanely beautiful ballad or effervescent, joyous uptempo song) are really the defining metric for whether one piece of music, or the work of a particular artist, may hold more sway over a listener than others.
I would say Stevie Wonder probably has registered the most of all the above for me in my life.
It would be so easy for me to begin an insufferably wonky dissertation, with innumerable references to musical-theory academia, and a musicological breakdown of history (which I would be more than happy to provide - I could talk about that stuff all day, especially with Stevie Wonder - but I’m not sure this is what you’re after) but this may prove pedantic, pretentious and boring.
In short, Stevie has been a progenitor of bigtime numbers on the scale of the aforementioned metrics.
He has outrageously great vocals, outrageously great playing, outrageously great songwriting that can be, as you put it, “simple-sounding” to a laymen, but in fact is the exact opposite; chock full of sophistication and harmonic/structural complexity.
This is perhaps the definition of a truly great writer; the ability to wield the mightiest and most advanced creative tools to eventually render a work of such high refinement that one “doesn’t notice the makeup.” Perhaps Robert Deniro or Meryl Streep’s best performances. A film like Citizen Kane. Ernest Hemingway once said of William Faulkner: “Does he think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
The thing is, Stevie’s music is packed to the gills with the musical equivalent of ten-dollar words, but, because he is of such obviously staggering genius, many of his best songs from 1966-1976 are of such a level of refinement that they may simultaneously be overflowing with harmonic/rhythmic/compositional sophistication and complexity AND “sound simple.” This is extremely hard to do. Not sure how many songs you’ve tried to write in your day. Suffice to say, it’s very hard to achieve both.
When a particularly musically-ostentatious artist, like, say, Frank Zappa, releases his best music, one is immediately struck by the extreme, intense sophistication and complexity of the compositions, as well as the musical innovation and compositional adventurousness - he’s clearly, “fancy and original.” One can then listen to the best Johnny Cash compositions and say, “this is a level of musical sophistication bordering on primitive/crude.” Many folks prefer one or the other.
Pop songwriters like Stevie Wonder, Randy Newman, Carole King, Brian Wilson, Prince, Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Smokey Robinson, Harry Nilsson and Marvin Gaye are able to render their compositions to such refinement as to sound, to a laymen, “like a catchy, simple pop song,” perhaps not unlike how Hemingway may render his literary works at the point of publishing.
Also: his sheer volume, QUANTITY to go along with ridiculous QUALITY, stunning musical variety, innovation, both as a vocalist, composer, arranger, producer, and employer of hitherto-unknown technology in the studio, the likes of which are long-since recognized as revolutionary.
Not sure how successful this was in the “not-gushy” department, but I did my best there
