“As a result of going into a subway station and meeting Andy [Mackay], I joined Roxy Music, and, as a result of that, I have a career in music. If I’d walked ten yards further on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now.”
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In 1975, two significant things happened to Brian Eno: 1) he collaborated with Peter Schmidt to create Oblique Strategies, a series of 100 cards designed to help foster creative inspiration, and 2) he was confined to his bed for a few months because of a car accident. The former, on the surface, can sound like a precursor to the kind of buzzword or Successories language that became prevalent in the corporate America of the ’90s. And who knows, maybe you will think that a series of cards with messages such as “Use an old idea” or “Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them” or “Is it finished?” written on them is inherently ridiculous and on par with cheap motivational language. The reality is that these cards—both the creation and application of them—helped Eno become the musician he is. While it’s impossible to measure or know how much of a net impact Oblique Strategies had on Eno, we do know that his convalescence was something that impacted him significantly as it was during this time that he essentially created ambient music—and in the process indescribably expanded the boundaries of electronic music.
Brian Eno is the most anonymously ubiquitous musician currently walking the earth. His birth name is Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno and he is sometimes referred to as simply Eno. All three variations of his name are pretty memorable, and yet, I would be willing to bet that at least half of casual music fans are unaware of who he is and the music he has a hand in creating—both as a musician and a producer.
Eno’s notable career started with Roxy Music, an influential art rock/glam band from London that formed in 1971, manning the keyboards and synthesizers. He was kicked out the band for some of the same reasons that Peter Gabriel was kicked out of Genesis (taking the focus away from the rest of the band during live shows because of his extravagant looks and costumes, etc.) which prompted him to embark on a solo career that started in 1973 and continues to this day. Additionally, in between the time he left Roxy Music, and interwoven throughout his solo career, Eno produced or co-produced (in addition to many others) the following seminal and influential albums:
— More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, and Remain in Light by Talking Heads
— The Unforgettable Fire, Achtung Baby, and The Joshua Tree by U2
— Low by David Bowie
— Ultravox! by Ultravox
— Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! by Devo
In addition to all of this, and the primary reason as to why the best descriptor I could come up with for the man is “anonymously ubiquitous,” in 1994 Brian Eno began working on a sound that would ultimately clock in at only six seconds: the startup music for Windows 95.[1] So, even if the name Brian Eno doesn’t ring any bells for you, you have heard his music before if you ever logged in to a Windows 95 PC.
In summary: Eno played a role in the first two years of an influential glam rock band, essentially created a genre of music, produced or co-produced some of the most recognizable and influential albums of the last 35 years, and created the startup music on Microsoft’s groundbreaking OS. If you want to put his legacy into a larger scope Brian Eno redefined how a recording studio is seen and utilized. He proved that the studio itself can be a living organism, a breathing entity filled with cavernous spaces with which infinite textures reside that are waiting to be plucked and utilized. It is telling in the quote at the beginning of this post that Eno says that he would probably be an art teacher if he had never met Andy Mackay because I envision Eno’s approach to making music is similar to how a painter makes their art. A painter’s studio is filled with multicolored smudges on brushes and palettes and jars and canvases that didn’t make the final cut; unfinished abstract colorings here, a still life involving cloths and bazaar knick-knacks over there. And I imagine an Eno-inhabited recording studio having the same feel: an unfinished xylophone-and-keyboard centric track here, a brief soundscape that evokes the color red over there; an audio equivalent of Picasso’s studio.
So, with everything taken into account, which song best describes Brian Eno? Honestly? I have no idea. The man’s catalog is so unique and filled with so many different phases and sounds that you could make a case for any number of songs. Therefore, I have decided to go with my favorite song from his best album: “Golden Hours” from Another Green World. The personnel notes for “Golden Hours” are as follows:
Robert Fripp: Wimbourne Guitar
John Cale: Viola
Brian Eno: Choppy Organs, Spasmodic Percussion, Club Guitars, Uncertain Piano
The “Wimbourne Guitar” is a play on Fripp’s hometown of Wimborne Minster, England and the instrument names that Eno assigns to himself are all you probably need to know when it comes to how his mind works with regards to the abstract and ambient sound he pioneered. “Choppy Organs” and “Uncertain Piano” are perfect descriptions for what is emitted through your speakers. As previously mentioned, Another Green World was the result of convalescence: unable to stand up or play traditional instruments or drive to the studio, Eno immersed himself in keyboards and organs and exploring textured soundscapes while bedridden, resulting in songs with titles such as “In Dark Trees,” “Little Fishes,” and “Becalmed”—songs whose music matches their titles.
“Golden Hours” begins with the aforementioned choppy organs and its spasmodic percussion is appropriately intermittent, but the real beauty of the song—and why I think it sets itself apart from all of Eno’s other work—is Fripp’s guitar solo, which is quite possibly the most beautiful solo I have ever heard. Beginning almost exactly at the two minute mark Fripp unfolds a series of notes so gorgeous that I sometimes forget that they are coming from a guitar (sometimes, because the sound is so soft yet precise, it sounds as if Fripp is playing some otherworldly instrument that only a few musicians know about).
As I wrote earlier, when it comes to Brian Eno it is nearly impossible to pick one song that best represents him as a musician in particular, and modern music in general. Eno’s catalog is pretty substantial: some of it is accessible, some of it… not so much. I think “Golden Hours” possesses enough beauty and awe as to elicit an approving nod for its inclusion on this site by fans, as well as being a very strong song to win over casual fans who have maybe never heard of the anonymously ubiquitous artist before.
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[1] From a 1996 interview in The San Francisco Chronicle:
Q: “How did you come to compose ‘The Microsoft Sound’?”
A: “The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I’d been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, ‘Here’s a specific problem—solve it.’
“The thing from the agency said, ‘We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,’ this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said ‘and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.’
“I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It’s like making a tiny little jewel.
“In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I’d finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.”
