Influence
Eno is frequently referred to as one of popular music's most influential artists. Critic Jason Ankeny at Allmusic argues that Eno "forever altered the ways in which music is approached, composed, performed, and perceived, and everything from punk to techno to new age bears his unmistakable influence." He has spread his techniques and theories primarily through his production; his distinctive style affected a number of projects he's been involved in, including Bowie's Berlin Trilogy (helping to popularise minimalism) and the albums he produced for Talking Heads (incorporating African music and polyrhythms on Eno's advice), Devo, and other groups. Eno's first collaboration with David Byrne, 1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, pioneered sampling techniques that would prove to be influential in hip-hop, and broke ground by incorporating world music. Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies have been utilised by many bands, and Eno's production style has proven influential in several general respects: "his recording techniques have helped change the way that modern musicians – particularly electronic musicians – view the studio. No longer is it just a passive medium through which they communicate their ideas but itself a new instrument with seemingly endless possibilities."
While not the only inventor of ambient music, Eno is seen as a major contributor to the genre. The Ambient Music Guide argues that he has brought from "relative obscurity into the popular consciousness" fundamental ideas about ambient music, including "the idea of modern music as subtle atmosphere, as chill-out, as impressionistic, as something that creates space for quiet reflection or relaxation." His groundbreaking work in electronic music has been said to have brought widespread attention to and innovations in the role of electronic technology in recording.
In 2001 Half Man Half Biscuit released an EP entitled "Eno Collaboration", which contains a track of the same name.
MGMT wrote a song about Eno, called "Brian Eno", for their 2010 album Congratulations.
The band LCD Soundsystem has frequently cited Eno as a key influence on their own sound and music.
In 2011 Belgian academics from the Royal Museum for Central Africa named a species of Afrotropical spider Pseudocorinna brianeno in his honour.
Read more about this topic: Brian Eno
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“I have always found that when men have exhausted their own resources, they fall back on “the intentions of the Creator.” But their platitudes have ceased to have any influence with those women who believe they have the same facilities for communication with the Divine mind as men have.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)