Dear all, This is intended to start a thread going song by song through the music of Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno. I won't go into detail about who Brian Eno is, but refer anyone interested to His Wikipedia Page. Brian Eno's career as a frequent collaborator and producer, and also a contributor to film soundtracks, makes it rather difficult to specify exactly what is a Brian Eno album and what isn't. My starting list of albums is just that - a starting list. It will inevitably grow, and there will be other releases, occasional singles, and rare tracks added to it. Taking a leaf from other song by song threads, at first this thread will focus mainly on albums solely contributed to Brian Eno that had clear releases, and major collaborations. If the thread gains traction and lasts then it can continue to cover less clearly 'Brian Eno' releases. The initial list of albums and songs intended to be covered are: 1. No Pussyfooting 2. Here Come the Warm Jets 3. June 1, 1974 4. Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) 5. Another Green World 6. Discreet Music 7. Evening Star 8. 801 Live 9. Before and After Science 10. Cluster & Eno 11. Ambient 1: Music for Airports 12. Music for Films 13. In a Land of Clear Colours 14. After the Heat 15. Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror 16. Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics 17. Remain in Light 18. Wrong Way Up 19. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts 20. Ambient 4 (On Land) 21. Apollo 22. Music for Films Volume 2 23. The Pearl 24. Hybrid 25. Thursday Afternoon 26. Music for Films III 27. Textures 28. My Squelchy Life 29. Nerve Net 30. The Shutov Assembly 31. Neroli 32. Headcandy 33. Wah Wah 34. Original Soundtracks I 35. Spinner 36. Extracts From Music for White Cube 37. The Drop 38. Tracks and Traces 39. A Year 40. I Dormienti 41. Lightness: Music for the Marble Palace – The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg 42. Kite Stories 43. Smart 44. Music for Onmyo-Ji 45. Music for Civic Recovery Centre 46. Drawn from Life 47. All Saints 48. Compact Forest Proposal 49. Long Now 50. Curiosities Volume 1 51. January 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now 52. Curiosities Volume 2 53. The Equatorial Stars 54. Another Day on Earth 55. 77 Million 56. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today 57. Beyond Even (a.k.a. The Cotswold Gnomes) 58. Small Craft on a Milk Sea 59. Making Space 60. Drums Between the Bells 61. Panic of Looking 62. Lux 63. High Life 64. Someday World 65. The Ship 66. Reflection 67. Finding Shore 68. Music from Installations 69. Mixing Colours 70. Dokument #2 71. Luminous 72. Rams Notably missing from the above are video releases and various 'other things'. These can be added if the thread achieves traction. The style will be to cover the songs on the album one by one, and then have a day to discuss the album as a whole. There will then be a rest/catchup day, before progressing with the next album. The 'traditional' track listings for the albums will be used, and any additional/bonus tracks can be discussed on days allocated to discussing the album as a whole or rest/catchup-days. If this thread gathers steam and there are requests to allocate more time to bonus tracks etc., then this can be discussed. I will post regular updates on which songs are discussed on which days. I most certainly don't claim to be any super-expert or completist collector of Brian Eno's music. I'll rely on the standard online sources for material and to be able to listen to albums I don't own myself. I've searched for previous Brian Eno song by song threads, and I haven't found any. If there has been one that I missed, then please tell me. The most important thing for a thread like this is that a group of people interested in participating forms. I'll post this today, and if we get at least a few people indicating interest in participating, then we'll start discussing No Pussyfooting on Friday the 5th of November. So, it's a number of days before we start. If people are interested in participating, then please post to this thread. This will let me know that people are interested, and also bump the thread so that other people can see it. You are welcome to rate songs and albums out of 5, and if people do, I'll collect the votes and post statistics. Everybody is free to use their own rating system, but mine is: 1=appalling 2=bad 3=good 4=excellent 5=absolute classic There's no need to use my scale - as long as people voting consistently use their own scale then we will be able to compare votes for songs and albums. It's likely that the list of albums above will be edited and enhanced as time goes on. OK, I've made my Brian Eno flag. Now I need to run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Here goes the warm jets^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hnothing.
I'm a huge Eno fan and even though I haven't heard all those albums I will contribute as much as possible.
I wonder if we will find anyone who has heard all of these albums!!! Welcome aboard from a fellow Leicesterite.
Somebody should get their "Oblique Strategies" deck out, to help us decide which order we should do it in!
I only really know Jets, Tiger, Green and Science of his solo stuff. This will be an interesting thread.
That's where I came in. There is so much to Eno (including pop). Eno's works are a solo listen for me (often on headphones) especially the ambient stuff. I have various favourites in a mix of styles, but haven't heard all of them. I just listened to the Cluster & Eno album at the beach (one of my favourite places to hear Eno). On some faraway beach...
Big fan here, he’s one of those artists I always come back to. I think his work got less interesting once he fully defined ambient music but obviously there’s still some great stuff in that department too. Check out the footage from his recent gig in Athens if you can, so great to hear him singing stuff from the earlier part of his career. Watch Brian Eno & Roger Eno play The Acropolis, their first-ever concert together
Welcome @Gjp163, @Prymel, and @Don Amos. I think the question of whether the thread will gain traction is rapidly being answered. I'm about to sleep as it's near midnight here - I wonder what will have happened by the morning!
Thanks @Paul Gase. Welcome aboard. I didn't expect things to get going so quick. And, I now regret in hindsight a bit setting the official start date for the thread for Friday. I expected it might take longer to get a number of people interested. In the meantime, I've looked into Eno's pre-Roxy history. One track that I think sounds very interesting that Eno appeared on is the track 'Paragraph 7' by the experimental electronic musician Cornelius Cardew, from 1971. Eno is said to be one of the voices on this track. I gave it a listen and I can't spot anything in the bits that I have heard (it's a 20 minute track) that is recognisably Brian. However, I think this is a very interesting track with it sounding like early non-electronic ambient music to me. I wouldn't be surprised if this is among the many influences that led to the development of ambient music. (I'm not saying this is bad or improper, there are enough differences in style that Eno's later work is not a copy.) I don't like to post that I'll wait until Friday and then start the thread earlier than that. So, given that this track is outside the scheduled list of albums, perhaps it (and others like it - I have found another thing I wasn't previously familiar with and hadn't heard) will help fill in the time until the official start of the thread.
Before we begin, Eno came to me this way. My older brother was a big fan of Roxy Music from the start. I couldn't really 'get them'. Fast forward to 1979/80 and I bought the Spizzenergi singles "Soldier Soldier" & "Where's Captain Kirk". The B side was "Virginia Plain" and that then led to appreciation of Roxy Music before they became Ferry's backing band. You can hear Eno over the 2 Roxy albums however it would have been hard to have his own vision (to compete against Ferry's). So when he split from RM, you can hear immediately Eno's vision with the first song off "Here Come The Warm Jets".
Looking forward to this thread! Just an observation: Music for Airports and Nerve Net are missing from the list in the first post.
I’ve been a fan since the first solo albums came out when I was in high school. I just traveled to Athens to see his show at the Acropolis. It was so cool to meet fans of his music from all over the world. I’m definitely in.
Thanks @Raf and @AZRunner. I'll fix the list of albums before we start for real on Friday. Hopefully in the meantime we can find all errors and omissions. I should have proof-read before posting.
Other albums that could be included: Textures, My Squelchy Life (released in 2014; can be tied in with Nerve Net discussion), 77 Million (can be tied in with The Drop), Curiosities Vols. I & II, Sisters (can be tied in with Reflection), Rams, For All Mankind (can be tied in with Apollo). And there are others. Man, this guy does a lot of things!
I've heard all of them, but there are several albums I've listened to only once so far and don't remember beyond a very general impression. There's so much stuff! And the timelines are sometimes confusing (to me, anyway).
I look forward to this thread developing. I had a listen to my Eno (and related) albums during Lockdown, working from home, however it will be nice to listen to them again with you all. Some of you may be aware that Brian and Roger played live at the amphitheatre below the Acropolis in Athens in early August, which was webcast by Arte, and can now be downloaded at Dime. PM me if you need any more info.
[Raises hand.] This should be a fun ride. Off the top of my head, some missed albums: SOLO: Textures (1989) - Music library album, but it's not hard to track down. My Squelchy Life (1991 / 2015) - withdrawn at the time, released as bonus tracks in 2014 and in its own right in 2015 Nerve Net (1992) - just an oversight, I assume! A Year (1998) - Bonus CD with the French edition of his diary. It runs over 30 minutes, so it's more an album than an EP. If Panic of Looking gets a look-in, then this definitely should. Long Now (2002) - album sent to wine dealers. I don't have this. Does anyone? Curiosities Volume 1 (2003) Curiosities Volume 2 (2004) - These are comps of (mostly) previously unreleased material, but so was The Shutov Assembly. 77 Million (2006) - Later reissued as the bonus disc with The Drop. Sisters (2017) - Free album sent to purchasers of the Reflections app. Music from Installations (2018) - Not 'Music for Installations', but the individual disc. This even had a single released from it! Music for Future Installations (2018) Rams (2020) -Documentary soundtrack album. COLLABORATIONS: Wah Wah (1994) - Eno actually is co-credited for this album (in distinction to his other work with James) and he co-wrote all the songs. Smart (1999) - Coin toss. Eno is co-credited, but only contributes to three tracks (and a fourth on a later reissue). Maybe leave for the extras / non-album tracks trawl? Dokument #2 (2020) - Ridiculously limited LP in collaboration with Laurie Anderson and Ebe Oke. Unfortunately, it's awesome. Luminous (2020) - Should be included on the Panic of Looking principle. In a Land of Clear Colours is co-credited to Eno, but it's basically a Sinfield spoken word album to which Eno contributes a couple of brief instrumentals (so it's actually more in the area of something like Diamond Head, where an album includes a couple of Eno tracks). Same goes for June 1, 1974, of course. Ambient 3 (Day of Radiance) shouldn't be included as Eno was just producer on it. If we're including that then we'll have to do all those U2 and Coldplay albums too (the horror! the horror!) I can help out with the non-album stuff when you get there. If I get the time beforehand I'll try to compile a master list of all the non-album stuff and PM it to you.
