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Originally Posted by storymilo
Got these at a record show a couple days ago... mm good stuff. The Eno is really good; kinda makes me wonder why he isn't more well known as an artist. |
Most Brian Eno's pop oriented music remains outside of mainstream tastes but it has aged better than much of the pop music 70s. It's hard to believe that
Before & After Science was made nearly 4 decades ago. There are still songs on B&AS that are still a challenge to listen but nearly every song on B&AS delivers rewards with repeated listening.
It will probably take 100 years for the general public to appreciate the significance of his more experimental ambient & electronic music projects like
Music for Airports which laid the foundation for most contemporary electronic music. Eno was pushing full tilt with his unorthodox ambient/electronic music, at a time when
Switched On Bach by Walter/Wendy Carlos was most people's idea of electronic music. Until Eno, electronic music was more a novelty genre and most producers and musicians didn't quite know what to make of electronica or how to use in their own music.
Eno made a quartet of pop music albums in the 70s that were each classics in their own right:
Here Comes the Warm Jets (1974)
Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy (1974)
Another Green World (1975)
Before & After Science (1977)
At the time the Eno's approach on these albums sounded radical to untrained ears but have a less startling effect on the listener nearly 4 decades later. Still all four albums sound modernist in the 2010 here and now. Each of the four albums have been recently remastered and are available digi-pack format (instead of the jewel box package) on the European EG label. Up until the reissue in 2004 these four albums had been out of issue and were nearly impossible to find in any format vinyl or compact disc.
My favorite of the four albums is
Another Green World which features my all time favorite Eno song
St. Elmo's Fire in which Robert Fripp tears a hole in the cosmos with a guitar solo that would make Hendrix grovel in awe from his heavenly throne. The Fripp and Eno collaborations, especially
No Pussyfooting (1973) contain some of the most forward thinking music of that era.
I love the low tech psychedelica of this homemade video to
St. Elmo's Fire: