IN DEFENSE OF BRIAN ENO

Responding to some disparaging words I made about producer and musician Brian Eno in a post I made last week, my buddy Paul sent me these remarks:

Brian Eno did not Ruin U2! In fact, I think he produced their best work (Unforgettable Fire or Joshua Tree, depends on how I feel). I totally understand the whole love/hate relationship you have with him, because he does the same thing to me. I'm not a huge fan of ambient music, but I love his production work with U2 and he did some of the best work of David Bowie's career. But I gotta' disagree that hearing his pseudo-intellectuallizing about music is better than listening to him. I personally find his words and thoughts to be almost unreadable, pretensious shit!

If anything has "ruined" U2, it's the same things that ruin most bands: Old-age and familiarity. (okay, drugs would probably be up there, too...) After a point, how many good songs are still left in the tank? Ray Charles and Johnny Cash both made great music up until their deaths, but they were freakin' geniuses! As for familiarity, their last couple albums were pretty good, but I am never going to cruise around the refineries of Texas City at 4:00 Am, smoking Lucky Strikes and just being 19, while listening to them, like I did with their earlier albums. Their new music, like a lot of bands, just doesn't have the mileage, the life experiences, the memories that I associate with the old stuff.

I think the new album is pretty uneven, and I actually hate "Vertigo" (their worst since that awful batman soundtrack, "Hold me thrill me kiss me, whatever.."). But there are still moments of brillance: "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" is fucking awesome. And even though at times they can seem like they are a self-parody, at least they haven't faded into self-important whining (REM) or some ridiculous joke (Aerosmith should have stayed broken up in the 70's, their music was better when they were all on coke and fighting each other).

Okay, I kind of got off the subject of Eno, but it's a lot easier to defend U2 than Brian Eno...

And my response to Paul's response:

As for Brian Eno, it's hard to argue with you. In fact, if you don't mind, I think I'm going to run a big chunk of your email on my blog, for equal time's sake. I never imagined how what I thought of as a throwaway comment, that Eno ruined U2, would generate such passion. The point is that you're right: Eno's work with those hard working Irishmen is, indeed, pretty great. I still remember the first time I heard the opening strains of "She Moves in Mysterious Ways" (back in what? 1990?) and how it blew me away. Joshua Tree is great; Unforgettable Fire is great.

So why do I think Eno ruined U2? It probably has to do with the fact that, already being an Eno fan, I was watching with great interest as he came in and placed his indelible stamp on the band. Like I said, I liked what I was hearing and thought it was pretty darned cool that this obscure space rock guy that I had been into since my freshman year in high school had joined forces with what was then the number one band in rock music. It was like one of those cool Marvel/DC crossovers from the 70s, like Superman and Spiderman or Batman and the Hulk. But as the 90s continued, U2 seemed to lose their way. Their music became predictable; their shows seemingly began to unintentionally parody their earlier shows. When I saw them for the third time in 1997 or 98 (I had totally grooved to their Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire shows years earlier), even they seemed bored, lifelessly working their way through their hits for an audience of yuppies and their kids at the Astrodome. The songs were still tighter than Steely Dan's butthole, to borrow a phrase from Ween, but without passion. Passion, in my opinion, is what made U2 so great. Without it...well, that show really made me sad.

I guess I blamed Eno for that loss of passion. To be sure, Eno's work has emotion, but of a different kind, a sterile, European, space/techno kind of emotion. A friend of mine who toured with U2 as a Greenpeace representative in the early 90s told me that members of the band said that Eno believed that they were moving away from playing American rock, and toward a more European style. It is my belief that this is, in fact, what happened: Eno shepherded U2 into the realm of the serious artiste. They became much more technically proficient, and their song writing became much more sophisticated. But it seems to me that this Europeanization of U2 came at the cost of what got them into the business in the first place, passion. In short, the Eno dominated U2 was great, but simply not the same as before.

I understand that a band, or any artist for that matter, needs to be allowed to change and grow. But it's really hard for me to not lament the loss of wild-eyed Bono and his mates, who were so charismatic and compelling in their work that they were able to get me, a conservative at the time, to reconsider Reagan's atrocious foreign policy in Latin America. They were really fucking powerful, and I think they lost that during their Eno years.

I may very well be wrong to blame Eno. You offer an alternative explanation, "old age and familiarity," that's just as compelling. Or it could be that they were simply running out of ideas and motivation around the time Eno showed up (Rattle and Hum comes to mind here), and he may have actually artificially extended their relevance for several years beyond what they were capable of by themselves. I don't know. But it sure has been fun to blame Eno all these years.

Eno is great. Like you said, his work with Bowie is fantastic, and let's not forget his work with Devo and Talking Heads, either. When I said that reading his theory is more interesting than listening to his music, I meant listening to his ambient music. Everything else, I still love. Even his bland new age Opal project stuff, which has the most infuriating, pretentious, condescending liner notes I've ever read.

Any thoughts about this Eno fans? U2 fans? Drop me a line or hit the old Real Art comment board. This is a pretty fun discussion.

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