Inspiring 'Eno Collaboration' by HMHB.

Sorry to start the responses on a negative note but I'd say most of what he has done has been exceptionally boring, especially inventing ambient music and producing U2. In fact I'd argue that few others have done more to bore than him. I'm sure the white hot ezxcitement of the new Eno-produced Coldplay album will redress the balance though.

Still, happy 60th Brian.

...the most bizarre might be that hilarious cameo he had in (I think!) the last Father Ted episode where he's introduced as 'Father Brian Eno'!!

I'm a big fan of his solo album 'Another Green World'; the title track of which is still the theme tune to BBC2's 'Arena', I believe. It's a wonderful album which has some lovely little pop tunes like 'St Elmo's Fire' and 'I'll Come Running' amidst some very nice instrumental tracks.

The first two Roxy Music albums are still the best to these ears; though the ones with Eddie Jobson are generally excellent too and Jobson was technically the better player, the experimental edge went with Eno, really. I think 'In Every Dream Home A Heartache' is still the best thing any of its members were ever involved with.

He also contributed what was labelled 'Enossification' to Genesis' 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway'. There's a discussion on another forum I frequent as to the extent to which he was involved with that album, and I'd agree there's a fair few traces of his sonic experimentalism on it.

No, not really, it's the barrr, bar be bar be bar be bar be bar barrr melody break in Virginia Plain, undoubtedly Roxy's finest 2 minutes.
Undoubtedly learned and bookish, but uncertain really how much he knows and does within production. Seems best summed up as suggesting folk chuck away any pre-conceived ideas already in place, and do the diametric opposite. I suppose he is quite good at getting subsequent results, however, so maybe that's all you need?
His early solo efforts were pretty limp, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy etc, given dreadfully weedy vocals.

...about his work on the Berlin-era Bowie albums. I personally find those instrumentals like 'Warszawa' to be utterly compelling.

Don't know if he can make Coldplay interesting, though- might be his biggest challenge yet, perhaps that's why he took it on! I heard the single and as ever with them, I found it pretty bland. I'll keep my ears open for the album though; lord knows you won't escape it when it comes out!

in my opinion is probably the most accessible (which for Mr Eno is remarkable in itself). I'm referring to 'Here Come the Warm Jets'; one of the best albums of the early 1970s.

Didn't he also like to drink his own piss as well? - that's pretty remarkable, if not totally warped.

Umm... his birthday was yesterday. I know this because he's one of the few famous people I share my birthday with: Brian Eno, Fergie Frederiksen from Toto and Mike Oldfield.

My favourite Eno album is Apollo which is a series of instrumental pieces composed to accompany a film about the moon landings and I played it a lot whilst writing my dissertation at university. More generally he introduced a lot of people to the more experimental styles of music which was generally a good thing.

Mustn't forget those Oblique Strategy cards too.

...in the mid 1970's was an interesting move.

During his time with Roxy, me and a couple of school-mates spotted him on the escalator at Stockwell tube station and got his autograph. He was wearing the full kit: make-up, fur bomber jacket etc.

Where do you start? Drafting the architecture for Ambient Music, set dressing Bowie's Berlin trilogy, giving the Talking Heads a musical make over, writing the 'Windows' startup chime.

However not many mortals could use the recording of a real life excorcism with a dark disco backing track to create the 'The Jezebel Spirit'.

A track which some years later went on to be used by Channel 4 as the theme to their American Football show.

No! Not even Eno could.

I like his ambient albums and his work with roxy. I mainly like they way his unapolgetically clever and creative but does it with sense of humour/fun. I think some people round here are too grumpy by far.

Two already outstanding bands made even better and never bettered since. Gotta be down to Eno that... and I'd guess Coldplay will benefit in the same way.

(scowls and mutters sotto voce)bloody young people......

but you blew my mind.

The original oblique strategy?

I think it was a very influential album in terms of how rock records sounded. Before it, FM/MTV rock music, even stuff that was good, sounded horrible: big echoey snare, big Wall Of Synth. Think Van Halen's Jump. Or Huey Lewis & The News. Even Born In The USA.
The Joshua Tree was made using every trick in the book of modern studio technology, but it made that '80s sound seem cheesy and dated.

here's a "tribute" to the great man. Drawn in 1999 or thereabouts, hence the reference to also ran boyband 911

How about his cameo in Father Ted as Father Brian Eno?

The Apollo album is one of my favourites too. But has anyone actually seen the movie for which the music was composed? Also- another of my favourite Eno tracks is RAF which featured Snatch on vocals and a very exuberant Phil Collins/Percy Jones rhythm section - does anyone know if you can get it on CD?

His great diary from 1995. Contains some superb lines, including the follow gems:

[8 October]

‘…Starting to think that all the world's major problems can be solved with either oyster sauce or backing vocals.'

[21 December]

‘…At the party, Rob Partridge said to me, "You gave hope to other balding men." My new epitaph: "Co-wrote a couple of decent songs and went bald shamelessly."'

Well "Before and After Science" contains the lovely pop of "Julie With" and "Here He Comes" and then there is the widescreen,slowburn of "Music for Apollo" as mentioned earlier on here.The work with Talking Heads is exceptional and arguably changed the direction of music. He's a funky bookish boffin both playful and endearing. It too bad he's more well known for who he has assisted rather than what he has done individually. Oh and the Roxy albums are still stunning today especially the second one. Bow down to one of the greats.Happy Birthday and thanks for all the music!!

Yes, Chris G - clever, creative and humorous, brimming with ideas, and a thoroughly nice man. Even if he did polish off the last slice of the best Christmas cake ever (fact, not opinion!), as his prize after beating us at Scrabble (his "janitors", using all his letters on a triple word score square, clinched it) in late December 1981. Just though it was time the world knew...

Just thought it was time...

Oh, I give up!

...rode down the hill past the Martlesham Red Lion on a pair of Sinclair C5s. Them crazy Art School types, eh? Ipswich Art College actually.

Channel Light Vessel. Roger was in this greatly named band with
"She's Geooooorgeous!!!" Kate St John.

To Sid Griffin.

...is one of those quietly influential, marginal figures whose work and ideas have steadily permeated into popular culture. He's hardly a household name. A majority of people will have never heard of him or knowingly listened to one of his albums, and yet they may well have come into contact with his music through other oblique channels, or have heard his direct influence on the music of more popular acts.

My introduction to his work was the instrumental - Another Green World - which (as JJ mentioned above) was used in the opening credits of Arena. It was probably well over a decade after I first heard the track that I found out who had composed it, but it clearly had an effect on me. When I purchased my first Brian Eno album (and I can remember very clearly pulling the scuffed CD jewel case out of the racks of Adrian's in Wickford) it was Another Green World that I bought.

Although I like some Eno projects better than others, I wouldn't have a clue how to go about separating his successes from his failures. Oddly for someone who is often regarded as a highbrow and intellectual, his art is generally lacking in pretence. The ongoing creative process is king; his albums, explorations of a given theme - cerebral exercises that nonetheless contain traces of warmth and humanity. I can think of no better recent example of this than Bone Bomb - the coda of his 2005 album Another Day On Earth - a sympathetic study of the last few minutes in the life of a female suicide bomber.

~---~~-~

was an ambient post

Portsmouth Symphonia - he played with them and I think he had something to do with the release of one of their albums!
Releasing Gavin Bryars Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus Blood - beautiful musics. Thanks Brian.
Introducing the term non-musician to the world of passports.

Plus, I bumped into him coming out of the loo at an anti-war march and he smiled at me, so I'm convinced he's a very nice man.

I had one of their singles, "Classical Muddley", in the form of medley of classical pieces. A glorious cacophony. Nearly as good as the version of the Dambusters March, by the Rawtenstall Concertina Band, a single of the same era.

As a very much struggling student at the start of the 80s, I used to slip Mr Eno's Discreet Music on the turntable (side one) and its gentle comings and goings genuinely relaxed me and helped get those assignments done. I am eternally grateful to Mr Eno for this and even now, if I should play this piece of music, I am transported back to that time and can feel the stresses ebb away.

...albeit more rock than roll! I'd like to add my best wishes to the great man and just cite his work with Robert Wyatt, Nico, John Cale, Harold Budd, Devo and Hans Joachim Roedelius for a start. The fact that he's got the inclination and the ability to "cross over" to more obviously commercial acts like James, U2 and Coldplay and also to have such a significant impact on them simply illustrates that he's got ears, a brain, creativity, ideas and talent. Oh, and his book "A Year With Swollen Appendices" is one of the more literate and interesting books you're ever likely to read by a "rock star."