The Heart of Everything

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The Heart of Everything
The Heart of Everything cover
Studio album by Within Temptation
Released Flag of the Netherlands March 9, 2007
Flag of Europe March 12, 2007
Flag of Finland March 15, 2007
Flag of Australia March 17, 2007
Flag of Japan April 4, 2007
Flag of the United States July 24, 2007[1]
Recorded 2005–2006
Genre Symphonic rock
Alternative rock
Length 57:06
Label Roadrunner Records
Producer Daniel Gibson
Professional reviews
Within Temptation chronology
The Silent Force
(2004)		 The Heart of Everything
(2007)		 TBA 2009/2010

The Heart of Everything is the fourth studio album by Dutch rock band Within Temptation, released by Roadrunner Records on March 12, 2007 (see 2007 in music) in Europe. It was released in North America on July 24, 2007.

Contents

[edit] Title

"The basic theme of the album is: What do you find important in life? What do you put at the center of your life as an individual? That is the main thing that we mean by the title, The Heart Of Everything – what do you find important in your life? – because we have to make many choices in life about different things. On this album we talk about religion in a way, and also about sacrifice...every song is inspired by certain important choices that people have made in life."[2] - Sharon den Adel

"So often, we live our lives without thinking. We just do things because we're born in a certain environment and people are expecting certain things from you. Sometimes its important to look within yourself and discover what really makes you happy and what's important to you."[3] - Robert Westerholt

[edit] Songs

"We pushed ourselves to make these songs the best that we could. We wanted to have a more organic feeling and more energy than ever. I think our last one, [2004's The Silent Force], went a bit too far in one direction; at times the orchestra pushed away the drums and guitars. This time we tried to get the guitars more prominent and have more riffs. It still has a big feeling and there's still plenty of classical parts, but I think we did it without losing the power of the band."[3] - Robert Westerholt

"Our biggest goal besides writing the best songs we can was to give this record more energy than the last one. I used my voice in a different way on every song. Sometimes it's high and melodic, almost classical, and in some songs it's lower with power." [3] - Sharon den Adel

"We made very careful choices when we were writing these songs. We didn't use orchestra everywhere and we also cut down a bit in the layering of the arrangements so they were more efficient and had less choruses so they could work better together with the band." [3] - Westerholt.

  • "The Howling" was written as a promotional song for The Chronicles of Spellborn, along with "Sounds Of Freedom". "The Howling" was used in an online trailer for the game.[4] It is about the Howlers, creatures in Spellborn universe. It was also released in the United Kingdom on June 11. The video for the single features a duality concept, with den Adel in an old country house in bright nature surroundings with a young child, and the band performing in a dark, ruined wasteland.[5]

In an interview with Live-Metal, Sharon talked about the meaning of the song.[7]

It's like a cry out, the holy spirit. And the song is about the fact that we haven't learned from war. It sounds like [that] because it's [Winston] Churchill talking [about] the second World War, of course, but we don't want to refer to the second World War exactly, but more the feeling of war and how propaganda works. A lot of times when you look back on history a lot of times it was propaganda, but a lot of times you see it as truth because it's somebody policing—sort of powers and stuff. But we haven't learned from that. We haven't learned from following people's lives. So people get sacrificed also for war and we don't learn from that. Here we are again in Iraq. A lot of things happen and again still a lot of stories are told that were not totally true and it's terrible. I think that's the feeling of a lot of people, so we just wrote a song about it.

  • "Hand Of Sorrow", according to den Adel, is about the fact that sometimes you sacrifice your own dreams for a higher goal in life, something that is bigger than yourself or a main goal for more people, instead of living your own life.[2] The lyrics are inspired by the book Royal Assassin from the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb.
  • "The Cross" was written about all the hardships that the band-members have faced.[3]

"That song in particular became very special to me. I love the song, it’s one of my favorites. It almost did not make the album because I wrote it together with Martijn in a different tempo but it was too quick, you couldn’t really play guitar to it. So, I wanted it to be really heavy, slow, dramatic, and really an angry kind of song, but it didn’t work out. It took me a year to get the right rhythm and right atmosphere and it finally made it to the album in the last few weeks of the recording. So, I finally got to say “Yay!”." - Sharon den Adel[8]

  • "The Truth Beneath The Rose", was inspired by aspects of The Da Vinci Code. "[It] is about the idea that belief is sometimes used to justify sins. On the other hand, it may be more important with belief that it's your own belief and you can stand behind it instead of following the belief other people may want to put upon you."[3]
  • "Forgiven" was written about the strength of unconditional love.[3]
  • "All I Need" is the 3rd single, according to the band's website.

[edit] B-sides

  • "Blue Eyes"
  • "Sounds of Freedom"
  • "The Last Time" (Demo recording)

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Standard edition

This is the track listing for the standard edition of The Heart of Everything.[9]

Title Writers Length
1 "The Howling" Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson 5:36
2 "What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson 5:13
3 "Frozen" Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson 4:28
4 "Our Solemn Hour" Den Adel, Westerholt, Spierenburg 4:17
5 "The Heart of Everything" Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson, Kooreneef 5:35
6 "Hand of Sorrow" Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef 5:36
7 "The Cross" Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef 4:52
8 "Final Destination" Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson 4:45
9 "All I Need" Den Adel, Westerholt 4:52
10 "The Truth Beneath the Rose" Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef 7:05
11 "Forgiven" Den Adel, Westerholt, Spierenburg 4:54

[edit] Additional tracks

Title Writers Length Editions
"What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo (U.S single edit) Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson 3:24 Track #2 in the U.S. edition, the original version is called "extended version" and put at #13.[10][11]
"Stand My Ground" Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef 4:28 Track #10 in the U.S. edition, between "All I Need" and "The Truth Beneath the Rose".[10][11]
Originally released on The Silent Force.
"What Have You Done" (rock mix) Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson 3:53 Track #12 in the yellow and pink special editions, as well as the digipak version
"What Have You Done" (acoustic) Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson 4:12 Track #13 in the yellow and pink special editions.
"Ice Queen" (acoustic) Den Adel, Westerholt 4:31 Track #14 in the yellow and pink special editions.
Originally released on Mother Earth, but this is an acoustic version.
"Stand My Ground" (acoustic) Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef 3:43 Track #15 in the yellow and pink special editions.
Originally released on The Silent Force, but this is an acoustic version.
"What Have You Done" (European mainstream mix) Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson 4:01 Track #16 in the pink special edition.
"Memories" (live) Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef 3:54 Track #12 in the European iTunes Store edition.
Originally released on The Silent Force, but this is a live version.
"Angels" (live) Den Adel, Westerholt, Spierenburg 4:04 Track #13 in the European iTunes Store edition.
Originally released on The Silent Force, but this is a live version.
"Stand My Ground" (live) Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef 4:29 Track #14 in the European iTunes Store edition.
Originally released on The Silent Force, but this is a live version.

[edit] Yellow special edition DVD

The yellow special edition includes a DVD with the following video tracks:

  1. "Our Solemn Hour" (live in Tokyo)
  2. "The Howling" (live in Tokyo)
  3. "Frozen" (live in Tokyo)
  4. "Stand My Ground" (live in Tokyo)
  5. "The Cross" (live in Tokyo)
  6. "The Heart of Everything" (live in Tokyo)
  7. "Mother Earth" (live in Tokyo)
  8. "Deceiver of Fools" (live in Tokyo)
  9. "Ice Queen" (live in Tokyo)
  10. "The Howling" (game trailer for The Chronicles of Spellborn)
  11. "What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo (video)
  12. "Frozen" (video)
  13. "The Howling" (video)
  14. "What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo (U.S. version video)

[edit] Certifications and peak positions

The Heart of Everything debuted at number one in the Netherlands, a first for the band. Across the rest of Europe, the album performed well, reaching the top ten in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. It sold 50,000 copies in its first week and entered the United World Chart at number thirty-eight, the first time a Dutch act made an appearance on this chart.

Chart Provider(s) Peak
position		 Certification Sales/
shipments
Austria Album Chart[12] Media Control 12
Australia Album Chart[13] ARIA 88
Belgium Album Chart[14] Ultratop/IFPI 2
Billboard 200 (U.S.)[15] Billboard 106 +16.000[16]
Billboard Top Heatseekers (U.S.) 1
Czech Album Chart[17] IFPI 12
Denmark Album Chart[18] IFPI 32
Europe Album Chart[19] IFPI 5
Finland Album Chart[12] GLF 2
France Album Chart [20] SNEP/IFOP 26
Germany Album Chart[21] Media Control 5
Greek International Album Chart[22] IFPI 18
Italy Album Chart[23] FIMI 48
Japan Album Chart[24] Oricon 20 +7.500[24]
Netherlands Album Chart[25] NPVI/GFK Megacharts BV 1 Platinum 70,000
Norway Album Chart[26] GLF 24
Spain Album Chart[27] Promusicae 23
Sweden Album Chart[12] GLF 4
Switzerland Album Chart[12] Media Control 8
Poland Album Chart[28] IFPI 22
Portugal Album Chart[29] AFP 5
UK Album Chart[30] BPI/The Official UK Charts Company 38
United World Chart[31] Media Traffic 38 +450.000

[edit] Singles

Four singles have been released from the album:

[edit] References

  1. ^ All release dates
  2. ^ a b Within Temptation Invades America interview
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Westerholt and Den Adel discuss new album. Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
  4. ^ YouTube - Within Temptation - The Howling
  5. ^ YouTube - Within Temptation: The Howling
  6. ^ YouTube - Within Temptation - What Have You Done (feat. Keith Caputo)
  7. ^ Live-Metal.net -Interviews-Within Temptation-Sharon Den Adel. Retrieved on 2007-05-13.
  8. ^ FYE: Within Temptation II
  9. ^ Roadrunner Records UK.
  10. ^ a b Roadrunner Records. Retrieved on 2007-01-11.
  11. ^ a b Within Temptation Website
  12. ^ a b c d Charts for Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and Austria
  13. ^ Australia Chart and Chart facts
  14. ^ Belgium Chart
  15. ^ America Chart
  16. ^ US sales
  17. ^ Czech Chart
  18. ^ Denmark Chart
  19. ^ Europe Chart
  20. ^ French Chart
  21. ^ German Chart
  22. ^ Greek Chart
  23. ^ Italy Chart
  24. ^ a b Japan Chart
  25. ^ Netherlands Chart
  26. ^ Norway Chart
  27. ^ Spain Chart
  28. ^ Poland Chart
  29. ^ Portugal Chart
  30. ^ UK Chart
  31. ^ United World Chart
v • d • e
Within Temptation (1996 –)
Ruud Jolie | Jeroen van Veen | Stephen van Haestregt | Sharon den Adel | Martijn Spierenburg | Robert Westerholt
Studio albums
Enter • The Dance • Mother Earth • The Silent Force • The Heart of Everything
EPs
The Dance • The Howling EP (Limited US release)
Singles
"Restless" • "Our Farewell" • "Ice Queen" • "Mother Earth" • "Running Up That Hill" • "Stand My Ground" • "Memories" • "Angels" • "What Have You Done" • "Frozen" • "The Howling" • "All I Need"
Videos and DVDs
Mother Earth DVD • Mother Earth Tour • The Silent Force Tour • The Heart Of Everything Tour
Related bands