Seal and the Music That Takes You 'Round and 'Round and 'Round and 'Round

If time is a flat circle, let’s play it at 33 1/3 RPM. Or maybe, for this example, we'll need to spin it in a Discman.

It's the summer of 1995, and Batman Forever, both the film and its soundtrack, are the hottest media on the planet —the film, thanks to its incredible cast, and the soundtrack, thanks to its second, inescapable single, “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal.

The song had been out for well over a year, and until the soundtrack’s release, it had fared worse than the first single released from Seal II, “Prayer for the Dying.”

Before that, Seal hadn’t had a top-10 hit in the U.S. since the pop-funk hit “Crazy” went from the nightclubs to the radio waves in 1990.

After the summer of 1995, Seal won three Grammy awards for "Kiss from a Rose," an unlikely hit that reached the top 10 in over a dozen countries, making him a household name and music icon in the process.

In January, Seal announced his 30th Anniversary World Tour, which will stop at Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas on April 30.

For the artist, however, this tour is less a celebration of a 30th anniversary than it is an opportunity to return to a period of time roughly 30 years ago when Seal and his audience were engaged in a dialogue.

“Whenever I listen to an old album or an album that has been largely influential, or at the very least integral to the overall journey of my life,” Seal says, “what it tends to do is take me back to that chapter of my life when they were the soundtrack.”

Seal mentions that Crosby, Stills & Nash's albums are among his favorites, but the one that really takes him back is Stevie Wonder's 1973 masterpiece Innervisions.

“That album really changed my perspective on music, and it actually made me want to become a recording artist, not just a singer,” Seal says. “You can, in this incredible format, this medium known as an album, you can take people on a journey, and you can play this soundtrack for them and help them create their own movie.”

Looking back at the artistry of Seal’s music — his raspy yet deeply soulful voice articulating the most eloquent ideas on heartache, love, death and addiction over expansive, orchestral music — one can truly appreciate not only the time Seal has put into his craft, but the intention of that craft as well.

“I wasn't just trying to sing some cool songs,” he says. “My approach to making records and when I perform live is trying to start dialogue. I'm trying to allow the listener to find themselves, or an aspect of themselves, or whatever it is they're going through in this music that I am making. And what I tried to achieve in this dialogue, this contact, this communication, is both of us kind of finding ourselves in this medium that we're fortunate enough to enjoy.”

Reminded of the opening track from his first eponymous album, “The Beginning,” Seal begins to sing to himself the song’s chorus: “Music takes you ‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round, hold on to the love.”

“The thing that comes to mind is not so much the ‘music takes you round and round’ bit, but the ‘hold onto the love’ bit,” Seal says. “What I think now is that they're one and the same thing — music, love — 'round and ‘round. If we're fortunate enough to either experience or create music, it's not something that I will ever take for granted. It’s a privilege. Music is the essence of who we are, and love is the essence of who we are. The music takes you around. So hold onto it.”

It stands to reason, then, that when Seal was presented with a unique opportunity to haveTrevor Horn, the producer for his first two albums, serve as musical director on the upcoming tour, he saw how he could put his musical vision and philosophy into practice live.

“I've never played the songs in the way that I'm about to play them on this tour,” he says. “The record has always been the record, and then I've done interpretations of the songs live. In fact, I've tried to do anything but re-create the record.”

With Horn on board as MD, Seal decided for the first time in his career to re-create the record in its studio sense and also in its original running order.

“The objective is to try and give the listener that 90 minutes of escapism, to try and get them to the opportunity to relive or remember that chapter in their lives," the singer says." You'll find that everyone has their own backdrop, their own script to that soundtrack.”

For Seal, Trevor Horn is an essential part of what people consider to be his signature “sound.”

“I mean, we're kind of inseparable when it comes to that,” Seal says. “There's the voice and, yes, there's my kind of approach to songwriting, but a large part of it is the way that both Trevor makes records and has instilled making records in me.”

One of the production traits Seal says Horn instilled in him was that albums have a sense of discovery.

“You ever had those records where you put it back on and think, ‘I just heard something. I was listening with headphones on, and I heard something that I'd never quite heard before?’” Seal says. “Well, Trevor's the master at that.”

But Seal assures his audience there will certainly be some surprises on the tour this year.

“They're not coming if we were just going to put it on the album; they'd just stay at home,” he says with a laugh, revealing little else other than that there will be a performance factor and a visual aspect to the show.

Seal believes that performing for an audience is a bonus to 30-plus years of making music.

“While we're enjoying this alchemy and this magic making music, we are actually experiencing life,” he says. “It never ceases to amaze me when somebody shares a story [about how my music affected them] because it's exactly the way that I feel when I listen to those albums that changed my life.”

To say that music is powerful seems like a cliché, but for Seal, music really has the power to bring people together, collapsing space and time as people share in the experience wherever and whenever they are.

“You know what people say to me, which always makes me laugh and makes me happy?” Seal says. “They say, ‘I grew up to your music,’ to which I reply, ‘We were both growing up together.’”

So, where were you in the summer of 1995?