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He glammed it up with Roxy Music, taught Bowie about atmosphere, schooled Talking Heads on African rhythms, produced U2’s most popular work, and set the stage for trip-hop by brokering the beauty of ambience. Brian Eno is one of pop’s great experimentalists, and the reissue of his early solo discs is cause for celebration. The Astralwerks label is now the home of Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World, and Before and After Science - must-have titles that find the composer working in a wonderfully eccentric zone of pop tunes. To bring you up to speed on this great stuff, we’ve chosen our 10 favorite tracks of the lot.
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Click song title to listen to a clip. Click artist name for bio, news, CDs, and more. |
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Baby's on Fire |
Brian Eno
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| There's the sneer of the vocal and the macabre tone of lyrics, but what makes this devil's dance so memorable is its relentless forward motion. One of the maestro's many synthesizers creates a pulse that's both sweetly erotic and dissonantly disturbing. |
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Driving Me Backwards |
Brian Eno
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| Suitable for a mystery movie, this ominous track finds its creator pounding a piano with a fully volatile vehemence. There may be logic to the slow-moving beat, but the crazed vocals and free-flying guitar noise portray a man at the end of his rope. |
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The Fat Lady of Limbourg |
Brian Eno
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| A portrait of life's seedier side, complete with back alley surrealism, ghoulish mobsters and the grotesque title character, whose super-sensitive tongue occasionally enjoys a "jellyfish kiss" - see, told you Eno had his weird side. |
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Taking Tiger Mountain |
Brian Eno
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| The dreamy title track concludes this 1974 masterpiece. The music inches along, and the vocals are layered to present a hazy atmosphere that boasts a shimming weariness. It foreshadows the gentle soundscaping that Eno was about to begin. |
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St. Elmo's Fire |
Brian Eno
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| One of the first pop artists to find a soul at the center of synthesizer music, Eno could make robotic sounds conjure sunsets or hurricanes. Wrestling nature out of machines isn't easy, but this grand patchwork does the job beautifully. |
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I'll Come Running |
Brian Eno
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| Call it a children's dance class tune as interpreted by a mad scientist. The kids do a foxtrot, Robert Fripp's guitar line twirls a luminous lasso, and Eno pledges his love in a sing-along chant that's equal parts silly and charming. |
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Everything Merges with the Night |
Brian Eno
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| Waiting is a hard job. Standing on a beach, contemplating all sorts of relationships, the singer draws parallels with a disintegrating romance and the onset of evening. Dusk can be dangerous, especially if you hear the earth's murmurs as poetry. |
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King's Lead Hat |
Brian Eno
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| Punk was raging in London when Eno dropped this pounding ditty in 1977. Everything moves quickly, dissonant sounds are cross-hatched and used as percussion, and the lyrics to the chorus make it plain that even experimental artists enjoy sex. |
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Here He Comes |
Brian Eno
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| What if the Byrds were British? Working a melody that swoops from the sky to tickle your ears, Eno creates his sweetest moment ever. Call it a gentle anthem of fulfillment; as the tune unfolds, the singer convinces us that some things are worth waiting fo |
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Julie with... |
Brian Eno
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| A valentine in the form of a reverie. There's no beginning, no end - just a feeling of profound drifting and romantic afterglow. A master at making soundtracks for the most secret moments, he captures stillness and silence like no one else. |
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