Journey through the Secret Life of Plants

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Journey through the Secret Life of Plants
Journey through the Secret Life of Plants cover
Studio album by Stevie Wonder
Released October 30, 1979
Recorded February - April 1979
Genre R&B
Length 47:58
Label Motown
Producer(s) Stevie Wonder
Professional reviews
Stevie Wonder chronology
Songs in the Key of Life
(1976)		 Journey through the Secret Life of Plants
(1979)		 Hotter than July
(1980)


Journey through the Secret Life of Plants is an album by Stevie Wonder, originally released on the Tamla Motown label on October 30, 1979 (see 1979 in music). It is the soundtrack to the documentary The Secret Life of Plants, directed by Walon Green and based on the book of the same name by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird.

Coming after Stevie Wonder's 1976 Grammy Award-winning Songs in the Key of Life, Journey through the Secret Life of Plants was panned by most critics and was confusing to many fans, who didn't know what to make of the conceptual, mostly instrumental double album. Even so, such was Wonder's commercial appeal at the time that Journey went all way up to number four in the Rock and R&B Billboard charts in 1979. It is now considered by many to be a classic in its own right.

Although written mostly by Stevie Wonder, a couple of songs were collaborations with former wife Syreeta Wright and with Michael Sembello.

Journey through the Secret Life of Plants contained unusual synthesizer combinations including the first use of a digital sampling synthesizer, the Computer Music Melodian, used in virtually every track of the album. Journey is also notable for being an early digital recording, released three months after Ry Cooder's Bop Till You Drop, generally believed to be the first digitally recorded popular music album. Stevie Wonder was an early adherent of the technology and used it for all his subsequent recordings. With Journey's international rhythms and melodies it is also credited to be the first New Age recording and the his use of digital recording influenced the very digital 1980's sound.

Stevie's moderate-hit song "Overjoyed" was left off this album and rewritten and re-recorded for his 1985 album In Square Circle.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

All songs written, produced and arranged by Stevie Wonder, except where noted

[edit] Disc one

  1. "Earth's Creation"
  2. "The First Garden"
  3. "Voyage to India"
  4. "Same Old Story"
  5. "Venus' Flytrap and the Bug"
  6. "Ai No, Sono"
  7. "Seasons"
  8. "Power Flower" (lyrics by Michael Sembello)
  9. "Send One Your Love" (Instrumental)
  10. "Race Babbling"

[edit] Disc two

  1. "Send One Your Love"
  2. "Outside My Window"
  3. "Black Orchid" (lyrics by Yvonne Wright)
  4. "Ecclesiastes"
  5. "Kesse Ye Lolo De Ye"
  6. "Come Back as a Flower" (lead vocals and lyrics by Syreeta Wright)
  7. "A Seed's a Star and Tree Medley"
  8. "The Secret Life of Plants"
  9. "Tree"
  10. "Finale"

[edit] External links

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