I just finished listening to Brian Eno’s magnificent Another Green World. It was the first time in years that I played the whole album from start to finish, or should I say from Sky Saw to Spirits Drifting, and everything in between (including the spectacular St. Elmo’s Fire and the irresistible I’ll Come Running).
So now, of course, I’m gonna put on another of this genius’s albums. Maybe Here Come the Warm Jets or Before and After Science. Actually, the exquisitely restrained but sublime sound of Apollo will probably be the one I wind up playing. But that’s just it: how do you choose one when Eno has produced so many truly outstanding albums, all gorgeous, most ground-breaking. The saving grace, I guess, is that you can’t really go wrong.
Withal, the main reason I opened this thread was to ask: any other Eno lovers out there? Anyone else agree with me that Brian Eno is a genius? A genius who consistently manages to produce such sublime sounds? And, so often in a way that shows us new possibilities - possibilites realized and presented in unique aural landscapes? Thank God, he’s prolific!
I love Eno’s work although I haven’t heard everything he’s done. His work was my doorway to another world of music that existed outside of what one could hear on the radio. There is a core of his work that I absolutely treasure. His 4 rock vocal albums (Here Come The Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain, Another Green World, Before & After Science) are essential, with Tiger Mountain being my favorite. There’s the brilliant Bowie trilogy (Low/Heroes/Lodger). And then there’s the Talking Heads connection with More Songs About Building and Food, Fear of Music, Remain in Light and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
I must admit to not having delved deeply into his ambient work yet. I did have and enjoyed Apollo. I also had Jon Hassell’s Possible Musics.
I really enjoy his comeback electronic rock album, Nerve Net.
I’m lukewarm on U2 but a good chunk of the Zooropa album (which I like) sounds like an Eno album to me, or maybe U2 paying tribute to Eno.
I suspect that a fair amount of the music we hear in his work originates from the player improv. Eno’s job is in the selection and treatment of that source material. So if he is a genius then I feel he shares that accolade with his many musician friends. Of course some of his ambient work is just him solo.
Huge fan of Eno here. He has been a major influence on my own music. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately with his Scape generative music application. I must agree that Another Green World is something really special, and a significant peak in Eno’s catalog. Aptly named, too, for it is otherworldly indeed.
Music for Airports is sublime.
Side one/the title track of Discreet Music is great, the other stuff is meh. On Land is great, a bit darker in tone than his other ambient albums. Closer to the Jon Hassell collaboration album, but in my opinion considerably better. Apollo is great.
The rest are OK, some good stuff and some meh, nothing to match the quality of the earlier ambient stuff.
Of Eno’s collaborations with Harold Budd: The Plateaux of Mirror is sublime. The Pearl is very nice.
Harold Budd’s solo albums are good, too, with a few gems, such as The White Arcades and The Room.
The Fripp/Eno collabs are all good, a bit more “rock” than Eno’s solo ambient/instrumental work.
The man’s a genius. An antidote to the the creeping meh! of the current airwaves.
Stuff your overblown vocal gymnastics, if ever you need to convince someone that less is more just play them “by this river” from before and after science …beautiful.
I’m a big Eno fan. Totally agree about his collaborations, too.
My favorite Eno album is Before and After Science. I think “King’s Lead Hat” may be a perfect song. It can be hard to find good quality versions online, where you can hear everything going on.
Eno reminds me of the best composers of the Renaissance.
Some great guest musicians on Another Green World. Lots of songs with Robert Fripp on guitar and Paul Rudolph (ex-Pink Fairies, ex-Hawkwind) rocking out on bass, John Cale plays viola on a track, and Phil Collins plays drums on another…
Eno’s last several albums have also been amazing.
Another Day on Earth is classic Eno pop. Lots of impressive guests on that one two.
Small Craft on a Milk Sea is like dark and angry guitar and drums ambient.
Panic of Looking and Drums Between the Bells, his collaborations with poet Rick Holland are like beat-jazz-poetry.
Lux is classic Airports-era ambient.
All highly recommended.
I have yet to pick up his latest collaboration with David Byrne, though it’s been out for a few years now. Anyone here heard it?