Eno: Innovator

[Flash Gordon]

Just been listening to "Another Green World". Liked it. Also got "Music for Films".
Unconventional, Brian Eno is not your average musician. He was the knob-twiddler behind the, then, futuristic Roxy Music.
He brought his sound to David Bowie's "Heroes".
He is credited as the inventor of ambient music.
He's as busy as ever. One of his most recent works was producing Coldplay's latest album.
A long time collaborator with genius guitarist Robert Fripp

[sixtyten]

Re: Eno: innovator

Good stuff!
a major hero of mine (despite working with U2 & Coldplay).
Have to say though my least favorite of his early vocal
albums is Another Green World.
It's good but not a patch on the rest IMHO.
My absolute fav is Here come The Warm Jets, followed by Taking Tiger Mountain. Before & After Science is brilliant too, but he's heading into
different territory on that.
I have never bothered with the later vocal albums, but have all the ambient
series and the Fripp/ Eno stuff

[Flash Gordon]

Re: Eno: Innovator

Yeah, U2 and Coldplay=Yawn.
He only sings on about a third of the songs on Another. But they're quirky and I like them, and the intrumentals are great.
Course, I know of the warm jets (that moment of relief when... I'll be back in a minute... )
Yeah, but I've not heard that album.
As a guitar player it was always the stuff he did with Fripp that interested me the most.

[LiveToTheMax]

Re: Eno: Innovator

Eno was great in Roxy Music. His solo albums were/are always new & interesting, as were/are his collaborabtions with the likes of Fripp, Culster, Byrne, etc. He's produced some great bands: Devo, Talking Heads,etc. Then there's Eno's are & ideas. The guy just never stops.

[LiveToTheMax]

Re: Eno: Innovator

Yeah, U2 and Coldplay=Yawn.
He only sings on about a third of the songs on Another. But they're quirky and I like them, and the intrumentals are great.
Course, I know of the warm jets (that moment of relief when... I'll be back in a minute... )
Yeah, but I've not heard that album.
As a guitar player it was always the stuff he did with Fripp that interested me the most.

Never understood why he took up the U2, Coldplay post, like you say... borrrrriiiinnnnggggg middle of the road pap.

[steveffisher]

Re: Eno: Innovator

A lot of decisions I make creatively are spawned from my set of Eno's 'Oblique Strategy' cards.

Musically, 'Another Green World' and 'Here Come the Warm Jets' are just too important to be ignored. His work with Bowie was legendary, and I guess he worked with U2 and Coldplay to make them better!

[sixtyten]

Re: Eno: Innovator

A lot of decisions I make creatively are spawned from my set of Eno's 'Oblique Strategy' cards...


and I guess he worked with U2 and Coldplay to make them better!

He failed miserably then IMHO. Both awful
I have both Oblique Strategies and Bloom on my iPhone

[Popsicle]

Re: Eno: Innovator

My favourite Eno album was "Taking Tiger Mountain"- I still have a somewhat battered vinyl copy somewhere! I have some singles too- "Seven Deadly Finns", "The Lion Sleeps tonight" and "The Kings Lead Hat" (The latter is an anagram of Talking Heads who he produced of course).

Saw him with Roxy Music in their early days-blimey, that was a few years ago.......

[AFBulimia]

Re: Eno: Innovator

"Here come the warm jets" is one of my all time favourite albums, though I have never really explored Eno's other stuff.... one of those things I've never got round to. lol

I think the thing which put me off was when I got hold of a copy of "Wrong Way Up", the album he did with John Cale. I thought "Wow! John Cale and Brian Eno? This is going to be amazing!" and, sadly, it never lived up to my expectations.

I'm thinking I will give him another go and wonder which are THE albums any of you would suggest? And don't worry about accessibility as I will listen to most styles - most of my album collection "Sounds like someone in a suit of armour being thrown down the stairs!" as my mother used to put it

[sixtyten]

Re: Eno: Innovator

Here come the warm jets
taking tiger mountain
before and after science
another green world
Apollo
my life in the bush of ghosts
music for films
eno with cluster

[Wil]

Re: Eno: Innovator

Another Green World and Before and After Science are both superb Eno pop albums (if you can really use the word 'pop'). Science contains my all time fave Eno track (and one of my favourite tracks of all time) - the incredibly sad and atmospheric Spider and I. I remember buying the 11 LP boxset - Working Backwards in with my meagre Dixons Xmas wages in 1983, just after I'd finished college and those two were definitely the stand outs. I haven't found his later attempts at that more normal sort of album (like Wrong Way Up and Another Day On Earth) much cop at all.

I have to be in the right mood for the ambient stuff but for me the best ones are the Apollo album and the The Pearl (with Harold Budd).

[AFBulimia]

Re: Eno: Innovator

Cheers for the list, sixtyten. I shall definitely have to check them out!

[sixtyten]

Re: Eno: Innovator

Any joy, AFB?