Stevie Wonder – The Secret Life of Plants

More of the Music of Stevie Wonder

  • This stunning copy of Stevie’s wonderful documentary soundtrack from 1979 boasts roughly Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on all FOUR sides
  • The sound here is bigger and livelier than on practically all other copies we played – above all it’s balanced, avoiding the tonality issues we heard on so many other pressings
  • “… there is beauty here. Stevie’s unquenchable desire for experimentation and love for melody are in full effect, and some of the magic and mystery of the botanic planet is evoked.”

This vintage Tamla pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What The Best Sides of Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

  • The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
  • The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1979
  • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
  • Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
  • Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We’re Listening For On Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants

  • Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
  • Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
  • The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
  • Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to most LPs.
  • Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
  • Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
  • Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

Side One

Earth’s Creation
The First Garden
Voyage to India
Same Old Story
Venus’ Flytrap and the Bug
Ai No, Sono

Side Two

Seasons
Power Flower
Send One Your Love (Music)
Race Babbling

Side Three

Send One Your Love
Outside My Window
Black Orchid
Ecclesiastes
Kesse Ye Lolo De Ye
Come Back As A Flower

Side Four

A Seed’s A Star and Tree Medley
The Secret Life of Plants
Tree
Finale

U Discover Music Review

Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants is an exceptionally long suite of often lengthy mood pieces in which “songs” are few and far between, and grooves in the funky sense rarely crop up. But there is beauty here. Stevie’s unquenchable desire for experimentation and love for melody are in full effect, and some of the magic and mystery of the botanic planet is evoked.

Stevie’s obsession with electronics allied to the sort of jazzy chords he favoured are in evidence throughout; this could not be the work of anyone else. It’s a soundtrack, not really a Stevie Wonder album, but the fact that there’s a sprinkling of songs worthy of Stevie’s classic albums amid the scene-setting sounds is a bonus. It may be a curiosity, but the album’s very existence was some kind of wonder in itself, and the love and almost obsessional nurture that went into it sing out of every track.

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