Mother Earth's Plantasia

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Mother Earth's Plantasia
Mother Earths Plantasia Cover.jpg
Studio album by
Mort Garson
Released1976
StudioPatchcord Productions, Hollywood, California [1]
Genre Space age pop
Length30:55
Label Homewood Records, Sacred Bones
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic 78/100 [2]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [3]
Pitchfork 7.2/10 [4]
The Quietus Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [5]

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

Contents

Background

The "Mother Earth" in the album's title refers to Lynn and Joel Rapp, a couple of fern correspondents who had authored plant care books and were friends of composer Mort Garson. [6] The music on this album was composed specifically for plants to listen to. [7] Garson was inspired by his wife, who grew many plants in their home. [8] Garson used a Moog synthesizer to compose the album, the first album on the West Coast of the United States composed entirely on the Moog synthesizer. [8]

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. [7] 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. [9]

Legacy

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. [10]

A cover of "Plantasia" was produced by Griffin McElroy for use in a 2017 episode of The Adventure Zone . [11]

In March 2019, Sacred Bones Records announced that they were officially reissuing Mother Earth's Plantasia. [9] The reissue is available on music streaming services and was released on vinyl, CD and cassette on June 21, 2019. [7] Angie Martoccio, writing for Rolling Stone in 2019, described Mother Earth's Plantasia as Garson's magnum opus. [12] 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. [13]

In France from 2023, supermarket chain giant Intermarche used the same track in a long-running TV advert for their '10 per cent' sales campaign.

The album was shortlisted for the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2025 Polaris Music Prize. [14]

Track listing

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

Charts

Chart (2019)Peak
position
US Independent Albums (Billboard) [15]
6
US Top Dance/Electronic Albums (Billboard) [16]
8

See also

References

  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. 1 2 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. ↑ Larsen, Dave (September 28, 1976). "Life of the Party Really Works at It". The Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California. p. 21.
  7. 1 2 3 "Mort Garson: Mother Earth's Plantasia". Sacred Bones Records. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  8. 1 2 "Celebrating Plantasia". Moog Music. Archived from the original on March 22, 2021. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  9. 1 2 "Mother Earth's Plantasia Gets First Official Vinyl Reissue". Pitchfork. Condé Nast. 22 March 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. ↑ "Journey's End: Music from The Adventure Zone, by Griffin McElroy". Griffin McElroy.
  12. ↑ 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.
  13. ↑ "TurboTax Not Taxes 2023 Commercial Song". Commercial Song. January 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  14. ↑ Kerry Doole, "Music News Digest: Rascalz, Constantines, Propagandhi & More Nominated for 2025 Polaris Heritage Prize". Billboard , August 6, 2025.
  15. ↑ "Independent Albums". Billboard . July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  16. ↑ "EDM Music & Dance Albums Chart". Billboard . July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
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