Back to Earth
Studio album by
Cat Stevens
ReleasedDecember 1978
RecordedNovember 1978
StudioSweet Silence Studios, Copenhagen, Denmark;
Le Studio, Morin Heights, Canada;
Advision Studios, London, England;
CBS Studios, New York City;
Long View Farm, North Brookfield, Massachusetts
GenreSoft rock
Length32:51
LabelIsland (UK/Europe)
A&M (US/Canada)
ProducerPaul Samwell-Smith
Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens chronology
Izitso
(1977)		 Back to Earth
(1978)		 Morning Has Broken
(1981)
Singles from Back to Earth
  1. "Bad Brakes"
    Released: 1978
  2. "Last Love Song"
    Released: February 1979 (UK)
  3. "Randy"
    Released: April 1979
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]

Back to Earth is the eleventh studio album released by the British singer/songwriter Cat Stevens. It is the only album he recorded using the name Cat Stevens after his conversion to Islam until the release in September 2017 of The Laughing Apple, his fifteenth studio album (credited to "Yusuf / Cat Stevens"). It was also the last album of contemporary Western music that he recorded until An Other Cup, 28 years later.[2]

Background

On 8 December 1977 Stevens was awarded the "Sun Peace Award" by the Symphony for the United Nations in New York City. On 23 December 1977 Stevens entered the Regent's Park Mosque in London and formally embraced Islam.

On 4 July 1978, Steven Georgiou changed his name to Yusuf Islam. Although he wanted to retire from popular music after his religious conversion, Islam owed his record company Island/A&M one more "Cat Stevens" album under his recording contract.[3]

Yusuf recorded this album in November 1978, re-uniting with his producer from the early 1970s, Paul Samwell-Smith, and arranger Del Newman, which includes his guitarist, Alun Davies, also his drummer Gerry Conway, neither of whom had appeared on Stevens' previous 1977 album "Izitso". Alun co–wrote two new songs. The old team had now come back together to complete the final record. Recorded in several places including Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Long View Farm in Massachusetts, Advision Studios in London, and CBS in New York City, the album was completed at Le Studio in Quebec.

At this point, Yusuf was praying five times daily and the sessions took on a melancholy edge, as it was implicitly understood that they were to be the last. On 3 December 1978, the album Back to Earth was released. The same day the album was released, Yusuf's father Stavros Georgiou died. As he was unwilling to promote the album Back to Earth with a tour, it peaked at only No. 33 on the Billboard charts, and its singles "Bad Brakes", and "Randy" made a poor showing in the charts. The UK single release, "Last Love Song", released on Island in February 1979, similarly failed to chart. All three singles were backed with the instrumental "Nascimento". It would be the singer's last album for 28 years, until An Other Cup was released in 2006.

Back to Earth features a return to the acoustic guitar sound of Stevens' early 1970s albums like Tea for the Tillerman. Two of the songs, "Just Another Night" and "Last Love Song", express bitterness about how he was treated by the music industry, with lyrics such as "If you don't want me, maybe I don't want you."[4] However, in the song Never, Stevens hints that he may return to music someday, "There's going to be another time; there's going to be another moment." Eventually, he would return to popular music.

Island Records no longer control copyrights to post-1974 catalogue of Cat Stevens albums he recorded for Island, including Back to Earth. They're nowadays owned by Yusuf Islam himself through Cat-O-Log Records label.

Track listing

All songs by Cat Stevens, except where noted:

Side one

  1. "Just Another Night" – 3:49
  2. "Daytime" (Stevens, Alun Davies) – 3:55
  3. "Bad Brakes" (Stevens, Davies) – 3:27
  4. "Randy" – 3:12
  5. "The Artist" [instrumental] – 2:32

Side two

  1. "Last Love Song" – 3:27
  2. "Nascimento" [instrumental] – 3:16
  3. "Father" – 4:08
  4. "New York Times" – 3:24
  5. "Never" – 3:01

Personnel

Charts

Chart (1978/79) Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[5] 89
United States (Billboard 200) 33

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. ↑ https://www.allmusic.com/artist/p5528/charts-awards
  3. ↑ "Home". catstevens.com.
  4. ↑ Interview by Chris Isaak for The Chris Isaak Hour on A&E television, April 2009
  5. ↑ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 293. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.

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