Brian Eno - A True Visionary

Why? - His impact on the music industry alone warrants some influence, but his work in the 70's spawned new genres and terms for listeners to grasp.

Eno's work as a musician and a producer can only be compared to like influence of The Beatles. His massive amounts of collaborations between genres is immensely evident, as seen with David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy. Of all the things Brian Eno is doing and has done, his work as an ambient artist is the most striking.

Beginning with his studies at Winchester School of Art, his love of experimentation with the piano during his stay was truly his first step at creating ambient music himself. While other great contributors of the genre like Tangerine Dream or Cluster, not one of them were in a sense a true atmospheric group uses single-tone or single-chord buildups that enveloped atmospheres that were both very rare during the 70's and very successful as Eno was. Of the 4-part series works that he would start after releasing his first 4 albums, the first -Ambient 1: Music For Airports uses ambient within the title to differentiate the past minimalistic style of his music and previous artists, thus an entire genre of music was born. And while this man cannot clearly be the main attribute to the genre itself, his work is one of the main contributors.

Eventually after graduating from school he embarked on a string of albums. Here Come The Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain, Another Green World, and Before and After Science. While the his debut and sophomore effort paled in comparison to his latter works because of their pop structures and vocals they remain to be a stepping stone for his known ambient styling, those ambient stylings that would affect future generations of artists like Tim Hecker, Ben Frost, Lustmord, to name a few. Once Eno's work on the Ambient Series was born, an entire genre of music was created for the sheer purpose of mere calmness and minimalism.

Historical Profile
Cagedream (Blog): Brian Eno & Gavin Bryars

Notable Albums:
Another Green World (1975)
Ambient 1: Music For Airports (1978)
Ambient 4: On Land (1982)
The Drop (1997)