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Mother Earth's Plantasia

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Mother Earth's Plantasia
Studio album by
Released1976
StudioPatchcord Productions, Hollywood, California[1]
GenreSpace age pop
Length30:55
LabelHomewood Records, Sacred Bones
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic78/100[2]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
Pitchfork7.2/10[4]
The Quietus[5]

Mother Earth's Plantasia is an electronic album by Mort Garson released in 1976.

Background

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The music on it was composed specifically for plants to listen to.[6] Garson was inspired by his wife, who grew many plants in their home.[7] Garson used a Moog synthesizer to compose the album, the first album on the West Coast composed entirely on the Moog synthesizer.[7]

The album had a very limited distribution upon release, only being available to people who bought a houseplant from a store called Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles or those who purchased a Simmons mattress from a Sears outlet, both of which came with the record.[6] As a result, the album failed to attain widespread popularity around the time of its release. However, it has since gained a cult following as an early work of electronic music.[8]

Legacy

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The album also gained popularity on YouTube, with the full album (uploaded without permission) gaining millions of views and thousands of comments spread over multiple different bootleg uploads.[9]

A cover of "Plantasia" was produced by Griffin McElroy for use in a 2017 episode of The Adventure Zone.[10]

In March 2019, Sacred Bones Records announced that they were officially reissuing Mother Earth's Plantasia.[8] The reissue is available on music streaming services and was released on vinyl, CD and cassette on June 21, 2019.[6] Angie Martoccio, writing for Rolling Stone in 2019, described Mother Earth's Plantasia as Garson's magnum opus.[11] Stephen M. Deusner, writing for Pitchfork, described it as perhaps Garson's "most beloved album, at least among crate-diggers and record collectors."[4]

For the 2023 tax season, Intuit used the opening track "Plantasia" on a TurboTax advertisement.[12]

Track listing

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Side one
No.TitleLength
1."Plantasia"3:21
2."Symphony for a Spider Plant"2:41
3."Baby's Tears Blues"3:03
4."Ode to an African Violet"4:03
5."Concerto for Philodendron & Pothos"3:09
Side two
No.TitleLength
6."Rhapsody in Green"3:28
7."Swingin' Spathiphyllums"2:59
8."You Don't Have to Walk a Begonia"2:31
9."A Mellow Mood for Maidenhair"2:17
10."Music to Soothe the Savage Snake Plant"3:23

Personnel

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Charts

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Chart (2019) Peak
position
US Independent Albums (Billboard)[13]
6
US Top Dance/Electronic Albums (Billboard)[14]
8

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Mother Earth's Plantasia (back cover of LP), Hollywood, CA: Homewood Records, 1976
  2. ^ "Metacritic Review". Metacritic. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  3. ^ Phares, Heather. "AllMusic Review". AllMusic. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  4. ^ a b Deusner, Stephen (July 6, 2019). "Pitchfork Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  5. ^ Coney, Brian (June 26, 2019). "The Quietus Review". The Quietus. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  6. ^ a b c "Mort Garson: Mother Earth's Plantasia". Sacred Bones Records. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  7. ^ a b "Celebrating Plantasia". Moog Music. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  8. ^ a b "Mother Earth's Plantasia Gets First Official Vinyl Reissue". Pitchfork. Condé Nast. 22 March 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  9. ^ Petridis, Alexis (2019-07-09). "Mother Earth's Plantasia: the cult album you should play to your plants". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  10. ^ "Journey's End: Music from The Adventure Zone, by Griffin McElroy". Griffin McElroy.
  11. ^ Martoccio, Angie (2019-12-12). "Revisiting the Weird World of Seventies Plant Music". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2021-05-18. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
  12. ^ "TurboTax Not Taxes 2023 Commercial Song". Commercial Song. January 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  13. ^ "Independent Albums". Billboard. July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  14. ^ "EDM Music & Dance Albums Chart". Billboard. July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.