Brian Eno
Brian Eno ( EE-no; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is an English musician, record producer and artist. He is known for his pioneering contributions to ambient and generative music, and for producing, recording, and writing works in rock and pop music. He describes himself as a "non-musician" uninterested in virtuosity, and advocates for using the studio as a compositional tool. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures.
Eno was born in Melton, Suffolk and studied at Ipswich School of Art and the Winchester School of Art. He joined the glam rock band Roxy Music in 1971, contributing to their first two albums, and left in 1973. With the guitarist Robert Fripp, he recorded (No Pussyfooting) (1973) using tape-delay and reel-to-reel loops. In 1974, Eno released his first solo albums, Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). His third album, Another Green World (1975), combined rock with minimal instrumental tracks. Eno coined the term "ambient music" to describe music he conceived to be "as ignorable as possible", and released a string of albums in the genre, including Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1979) and, with his brother Roger and Daniel Lanois, Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983).
Eno contributed to the David Bowie albums Low (1977), Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979), known as the Berlin Trilogy, and produced the Talking Heads albums More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979) and Remain in Light (1980). Eno and Lanois produced U2's albums The Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987) and Achtung Baby (1991), which were multi-platinum hits. He composed the Microsoft Sound, the startup sound for Windows 95. Eno produced Coldplay's album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, the highest-selling album of 2008, and co-wrote their next album, Mylo Xyloto (2011). Eno has also collaborated with acts including John Cale, Devo, James, Laurie Anderson, Karl Hyde and Fred Again.
Rolling Stone's 2023 list of the 500 greatest albums includes two Eno albums, plus several he created with Roxy Music, Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads and U2. In 2019, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music. He is an activist on behalf of humanitarian, environmental, anti-war and pro-Palestinian causes and is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation.
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