Album – Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants Vol. I and II
Group – Stevie Wonder
Year – 1979
Genre – Eclectic progressive pop? I guess?
Country – U.S.A.
Album suggested, re-suggested and then repeatedly begged for over the course of a year by Thomas Denning.
Hello again! It’s been nearly a year since my last review, thanks to a busy school life and endless gigs (the bass player’s curse), but friends of mine have been asking me to continue my reviews for some time now, and I think I finally have the time to oblige them.
I know what you’re thinking: Stevie Wonder? The pop singer? That’s even less prog than Kansas! To that I say that you have to reevaluate what progressive music actually is. Before it became so blown out of proportion that it eventually wound up becoming a parody of itself, progressive music was about experimentation with blending and bending genres. In prog, it was okay to get a little bit of classical in your jazz, all running into a hearty serving of hard rock and eventually metal.What this album has in spaces is genre blending. Classical, jazz, pop, funk, world music, Latin, R&B, disco… nothing was safe on this album, which was technically a soundtrack, but stands alone as a concept album about plants, and I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty darn prog.
Overview:
Okay, let’s just get this out of the way: this album is MASSIVE, clocking in at just over an hour and a half, and while I do understand that part of that is because this is technically a soundtrack album (though it is far more popular in its own right than with the movie, as was the case with Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly), that still makes it more than a bit tedious to listen to straight through. It would be a different story if all the songs were nice, concise pop songs, but they aren’t. In fact, some of them are just complete fluff which could have been cut out and made it so that this could have easily been a single album rather than a double, as this album contains some of the biggest duds in Stevie’s entire catalog. This album could have been drastically improved by just trimming the fat. That isn’t to say that there aren’t great songs on this album too – there are – but this album of twenty songs, they can’t all be zingers. Not only are the songs not all zingers, but the track order does not not do the album any favors, front-loading it with some of the weakest numbers. Again, I know this is due to it being a soundtrack, but we’re just talking about this record as a standalone album.
That said, this album certainly has its share of positive traits, not least of which is Stevie Wonder, a master songwriter and musician, getting to truly spread out and take risks without the worry of conforming to any one genre. He perfectly paints the perfect pictures of the images he’s trying to depict. The chord progressions will make your hair stand up and Stevie’s beautiful vocals with sooth and stick in your head. Much like the previous album, Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie expands the role of the keyboard, layering it to fit all parts of the music and making use of the brand new digital sampling synthesizer, the Computer Music Melodian. Interestingly, aside from his keyboards, the album contains mostly acoustic instruments, giving a unique flavor or both acoustic and electronic blended together. This was also one of the very first albums to be digitally recorded, making it sonically stand out from its contemporaries. Secret Life of Plants is a beautifully lush sounding record, with space-ages synth everywhere, used in an almost orchestral way, but at the same time being tasteful and non-hokey (I’m looking at you Keith Emerson).
The Songs:
1. “Earth’s Creation” – Any casual Stevie Wonder fan who bought this album on a whim and dropped the needle on this first track might have easily thought there was some sort of mixup. This intro track growls in with a low synth playing a Gustav Holst-esque line in 5/4 time. I actually think that this orchestral inspired track makes an excellent opener to this album – or at least it would have if it weren’t unlistenable. This track, though initially cool, goes on for what seems like the actual length of the creation of the Earth and doesn’t really wind up building to anything, so what could have been a strong opener winds up being generally flat and boring.
2. “The First Garden” – Another instrumental follows in opposite sonic sense, as an orchestra of synthesizers is replaced with plucked double bass, rest of the strings, rain forest noises, and Stevie blowing away a pretty little melody on his harmonica. The primordial ooze of “Earth’s Creation” is replaced with the lush life that perfectly depicts the image of Earth’s first garden. I understand conceptually why both songs exist, but if we’re being honest and you just want to listen to a good album, start on track two.
3. “Voyage to India” – More peaceful instrumental music, featuring the token sitar and tabla required in a song about India. Another nice bit of picture painting, but three tracks in to this album by a pop singer, a memorable vocal hook wouldn’t have been the worst addition in the world.
4. “Same Old Story” – Vocals! Voice and acoustic instruments make for a surprisingly catchy, touching and clever ballad about science. This is a touching piece of pop music, and Stevie Wonder proves as he does time and time again to have one of the best voices ever put to tape.
5. “Venus’ Flytrap and the Bug” – Jazz? Yes, this is a sleazy jazz number featuring more double bass, this time combined cleverly with synths and treated scat vocals. Never before have I heard a song so perfectly depict a bug being eaten by a venus flytrap. I do like this short little song, though I’m not sure this was the best place for it on the album.
6. “Ai No, Sono” – You know how I said there were clunkers on this album? This is one of those. Just skip it. It’s two minutes of bad synth strings and a bunch of kids singing.
7. “Seasons” – This is a sort of interesting Latin-esque instrumental, using synths. It isn’t terribly memorable though, and doesn’t add much. If you’re already skipping “Ai No Sono”, go ahead and give this one a pass too.
8. “Power Flower” – We change genres again here as we enter the world of R&B. Roads, key bass, some smoothly funky drums and falsetto make for a cool sexy number, which may be silly being that it’s about plants. It isn’t until track 8 that we really get our first “hooky” song, which is certainly a problem, but once you get to here, it’ll surely be stuck in your head.
9. “Send One Your Love (Music)” – This soul instrumental is one of the stronger instrumental tracks on the record. Acoustic guitar and synthesizers are blended perfectly. The only curious thing is that another, far better version of this song appears just two tracks later, so why is this even included on this album that certainly has plenty of fat to cut?
10. “Race Babbling” – Any album that contains this song loses a star automatically. This is the worst song in Stevie Wonder’s entire catalog for a number of reasons. To start, it doesn’t belong on this album at all, as it’s a discoish drum loop with some very dated synths, vocoder, and a few lackluster horn parts. This would be bad enough on its own, but this song happens to be nearly NINE MINUTES LONG. That’s right, this rejected Daft Punk song is the longest song on the album BY FAR. Over the course of those nine excruciating minutes, nothing really happens. There’s no proper melody and it is devoid of any compositional creativity. This wreck of a song adds nothing but length to an already too long album.
11. “Send One Your Love” – This is a great soul song and was the single from the album. After listening to the instrumental version and wishing vocals had come in, this perfectly satisfies that desire. The fact that two versions of this soul song sandwich the nine minute dance odyssey that is Race Babbling is just sort of of odd. You really only needed this one, Stevie.
12.”Outside My Window” – If you’re a fan of classic Stevie, this song is for you. The melody is infectious, and the song bounces along in a light swing. Even the fact that the main hook is sung on “la” doesn’t bother me one bit because the melody is so wonderful.
13. “Black Orchid” – A reverb heavy pop ballad. Clever plant imagery and fun chord progressions keep this precursor to the 80s from being just another one of “those” ballads.
14. “Ecclesiastes” – We break from the pop ballads to move toward some pseudo classical instrumental music. Probably the most movie-score-sounding songs on the album, this instrumental reminds one of John Williams and actually holds up quite well with all of its organ and synths.
15. “Kesse Ye Lolo De Ye” – Another left turn with a bit of world music. While not as bad as “Ai No, Sono”, this is far from an essential track. Another three minutes that could have been cut.
16.”Come Back as a Flower” – Stevie switches to piano duty on this ballad and lets Syreeta Wright take over on vocals. The female soprano vocalist is a nice change of pace and separates this flower ballad from the others. The percussion is also a nice touch.
17. “A Seed’s A Star/Tree Medley” – The pace quickens as we are treated to this funky live track. Slap bass, a wonderfully catchy chorus, a lively vocal performance and Stevie’s trademark silky smooth chromatic chord progressions make this a standout track. This track is reminiscent of “Another Star” off of the previous record, but vastly superior.
18. “The Secret Life of Plants” – Finally we reach the title track, and what a track it is. Gorgeous doesn’t aptly describe of of Stevie’s strongest songs. A return to acoustic instruments and a haunting vocal melody set the scene for a deep and beautiful lyric about the state of mother nature. I didn’t know I could be so moved by a song about plants.
19. “Tree” – Here we return to gentle classical inspired music, which morphs soon into an interesting blend of electronic sounds, ballad piano, nature noise and oddly classical synths. This song delineates quite well the awe of mother nature without a single word.
20. “Finale” – Behind only the title track for the best song spot, this instrumental combines the themes from all of the other tracks into a single glorious piece. This would have made a brilliant overture for the album, but its placement at the end ensures that the listener is already familiar with all of the themes. Stevie creates an orchestra with his synths for what could only be described as a wonderful, genre bending piece of progressive music.
Afterthought:
While it certainly has its brilliant moments and is more than a bit ambitious, Secret Life of Plants falls flat in more areas than can be ignored. It is far too long, with many of the songs being unnecessary fluff, and ordered in a way that makes getting to the stronger second half almost a chore. Many of the songs are also rather unmemorable, so after listening to twenty tracks, you feel yourself only really recalling a dozen of them. Because it was released as a soundtrack, it had to adhere to a certain order and length that prevented it from being a truly beautiful concept album. That said, even if bulky, it does present itself as one of the truest examples of a concept album by any artist, and its creativity and boundlessness deserve a second listen from anyone who enjoys progressive music.
Rating: 6.5/10
Standout Tracks: “The Secret Life of Plants”, “Finale”, “A Seed’s a Star/Tree Melody”
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