Seal was already in the charts with a song called “Killer” which featured his vocals in a song by Adamski, so it was unusual that he chose to do his first self-titled album with Trevor Horn and not one of the major record labels that was talking to him at the time. From Trevor Horn’s “Adventures in Modern Recording” we see that it was his wife Jill Horn that was Seal’s advocate in the partnership, “I’m sending Seal in to meet you. You’re gonna love him.” (Horn, 2022). Trevor Horn on the other hand was non-committal, when speaking about the demo of ‘Crazy’, “Although I liked the lyrics, especially the chorus, I couldn’t really tell whether Seal was a good singer, not least because somebody had seen fit to put his voice through a phaser.” Seal’s manager was also against the idea of Seal signing on to ZTT, “Seal’s then-manager had reservations about me [Horn] producing ‘Crazy’ and told Seal that if I got my mitts on his music I’d bland it out.” However, part of the deal with ZTT was that ‘Crazy’ would be produced by Guy Sigsworth at Beethoven Street Studios in west London. This in the end did not happen and the track that achieved top 10 in 16 countries was eventually produced by Horn.
The album starts with the track “The Beginning”, a funky and lively track with elements of disco, clean guitars, programmed drums, sampled muted horns, and a driving syncopated bass. The chorus, while repetitive, is delivered so skilfully by Seal, “(“Music takes you round and round and round and round and rou-ound/Hold on to the love”) doesn’t look like much on paper, but the way he delivers it is thrilling: working away at each repeated syllable like a carpenter lovingly sanding down a bevelled edge.” (Sherburne, 2021) The drum and bass guitar break feature percussive elements that makes way for a key change (to the relative minor) creating interest before moving to a sparsely instrumented outro with just acoustic guitar and Seal.
“Deep Water” follows with an intro with simple percussion and acoustic guitar before slide guitar starts. This track has a more plaintive feel in keeping with the lyrics. Horn has treated this track with a light touch that does not feel all that pop at the start and then morphs towards the middle of the track into something much funkier like, “Moments like the interstitial passage at the midway point of “Deep Water” hint at paths the record could have taken, the ambient remix album that exists in an alternate universe,” (Sherburne, 2021).
The next track “Crazy” as mentioned earlier was meant to be produced by Guy Sigsworth as part of the deal with ZTT. The final version was produced by Horn and took two months to produce, “When we made the first Seal album, we spent two months doing Crazy – and then about two months on the whole album. Crazy wasn’t an easy record to make, because we were aiming high,” (Lindvall, 2014). The start of the song with ethereal synths opens to a swelling organ sound after an orchestral hit which could only be from a Fairlight CMI. The drums and bass cut in before the first verse. It is a very dense production with guitars, multi-tracked vocals, what sounds like cut up and retracked drums. The use of wah on the guitar also creates a lot of interest in the main break.
Moving past “Killer” as this was produced by Adamski, to “Whirlpool” which I think really shows Seal’s skill as a vocalist. Bluesy, yet restrained accompaniment really lets Seal’s voice shine. He is accompanied by two vocalists (Wendy & Lisa from Prince & the Revolution) towards the end of the track that Horn loved “They said they had an idea for a vocal at the end, and the three of them went out and it was fucking great.” (Pop, 2020).
“Future Love Paradise” was “was originally recorded with two tracks of MIDI, one track of audio straight into Studio Vision — the drums were MIDI drums, and a keyboard and Seal’s vocals. That’s how we started and we built it all on top of that.” (Peel, 2005). This marks a change in recording technology from 24 track analogue tape to fully digital. Horn remarks in his book that this makes arrangement easier, “I’d got some new software, SoundTools, that allowed me to load a digital mix into my computer that I could edit myself. Up to that point, the only way that you could ever edit audio was on tape. You marked it with chalk, cut it with a razor blade. This stuff was a revolution and meant I could really attend to the main thing that I had decided was wrong with ‘Crazy’, which was the arrangement.” (Horn 2022).
This change in working practices from tape to fully digital is also referenced in ‘Pop Music – Technology and Creativity’, “This transition to digital technology has not only brought about a revolution in working practices but has also played an important role in determining how pop music as an art form has evolved in the past 25 years. This is because digital technology has not merely improved sound quality but has fundamentally altered the ways in which musical gestures are created, manipulated and interact with one another.” (Warner, 2017). These changes in workflow can have a dramatic affect on the ability for artists to explore musical ideas and arrangements with relative ease, “Once as sound has been digitally recorded it can be manipulated in a wide variety of ways within a digital editing programme, and these manipulations are non-destructive. As a result, pop musicians can extensively explore the musical potential of recorded sounds without ever losing the original recording… it is the creative imagination of the pop musician that becomes the determining factor in pop music production, rather than any physical limitations.” (Werner, 2017).
Track listing:
All lyrics and music written by Seal, except where noted:
- “The Beginning” (Seal, Guy Sigsworth) – 5:40
- “Deep Water” – 5:56
- “Crazy” (Seal, Sigsworth) – 4:47 or 5:57
- “Killer” (Adam Tinley, Seal) – 6:22
- “Whirlpool” – 3:56 or 3:51
- “Future Love Paradise” – 4:20
- “Wild” (Seal, Sigsworth) – 5:19 or 5:28
- “Show Me” – 5:59
- “Violet” (Seal, Sigsworth) – 8:06 or 8:31
Production:
- Seal – vocals
- Richard Cottle, Mars Lasar, Mark Mancina, Jamie Muhoberac, Guy Sigsworth – keyboards/sampling
- Gus Isidore, Randall Jacobs, Chester Kamen, Trevor Rabin, Kenji Suzuki, Bruce Woolley – guitars
- Chrissy Shefts – all guitars (“Crazy”)
- Trevor Horn, Steve Pearce, Doug Wimbish – bass guitar
- Curt Bisquera, Denny Fongheiser, John Robinson, Keith LeBlanc – drums
- Paulinho da Costa, Andy Duncan, Luís Jardim – percussion
- Gary Maughan – Fairlight CMI
- Gota Yashiki – drums, percussion, bass guitar
- Ian Morrow – keyboard and drum programming
- Maria Vidal – backing vocals
- Robin Hancock – programming
- Anne Dudley – string arrangements
References
Horn, T. (2022) “’Crazy’, Seal (1990)” in Adventures in Modern Recording. London, UK: BONNIER BOOKS LTD, pp. 272–283.
Lindvall, H. (2014) Trevor Horn: ‘I had delusions the label would be a hub of creativity’, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2014/feb/13/trevor-horn-video-killed-the-radio-star-ztt (Accessed: October 31, 2022).
Peel, I. (2005) Trevor Horn – 25 Years Of Hits. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/trevor-horn (Accessed: October 31, 2022).
Pop, C. (2020) My life in vinyl: Trevor Horn, Classic Pop Magazine. Available at: https://www.classicpopmag.com/2019/10/my-life-in-vinyl-trevor-horn/ (Accessed: October 31, 2022).
Sherburne, P. (2021) Seal: Seal, Pitchfork. Available at: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/seal-seal/ (Accessed: October 31, 2022).
Warner, T. (2017) in Pop music: Technology and creativity: Trevor Horn and the Digital Revolution. London, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 20–22.