3 Career-Defining Albums Produced by Brian Eno

In 1975, Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt published Oblique Strategies, a set of cards to help one escape writer’s block. Here are some examples: “Simple subtraction,” “Retrace your steps,” and “Repetition is a form of change.”

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Here’s another idea for the set: “Make a record with Brian Eno.”

Working with everyone from David Bowie to Talking Heads, Eno has guided iconic artists out of creative roadblocks, often resulting in career-defining albums. Here are three examples of his strategies in action.

‘The Joshua Tree’ by U2

U2 first worked with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois on The Unforgettable Fire. Eno and Lanois transformed the band’s early punk and new wave into something more ambient. And its follow-up, The Joshua Tree, expanded this transformation, literally. U2’s fifth album is open, spacious, and grand. This is U2 becoming a stadium act.

It remains a masterpiece, and songs like “With Or Without You”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and “Where The Streets Have No Name” put U2 on a path toward Rolling Stones-level legacy. Eno and Lanois appear as fellow bandmates, with Lanois’s cavernous reverbs and Eno’s left-of-center science fiction balancing U2’s biggest-band-in-the-world objective.

‘Laid’ by James

Compared to other Manchester legends, such as Oasis, The Smiths, and The Stone Roses, James often gets overlooked. But overlooking James is a mistake. Eno produced the band’s fifth album, adding a cinematic layer to the group’s stellar songwriting. Remember, this was 1993 England, and Suede’s Brett Anderson had just appeared on the cover of Select magazine with a headline declaration: Yanks go home! Thus began Britpop.

But James wasn’t Britpop. The Mancunians had abandoned the baggy sound of “Come Home”, the opening track on Gold Mother. On Laid, James’s filmic folk rock might be seen as a precursor to Coldplay or Travis. But Britpop would have to come and go first. The title track, “Laid”, broke the band in America and remains its most popular song—a self-conscious anthem about sex and the awkward messiness of it all wrapped in two-and-a-half minutes of Eno-induced perfection.

‘Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends’ by Coldplay

After two successful albums, Coldplay was in danger of sounding too much like … Coldplay. On Parachutes, the band’s post-Britpop acoustic songs were charming. With A Rush Of Blood To The Head, Coldplay absorbed the modernist alt-rock Radiohead had abandoned, offering the emotional piano-rock of “Clocks” and “The Scientist”. This was an artist for those longing for Thom Yorke to get back to The Bends.

Then X&Y arrived, and Chris Martin seemed to run out of ideas. So Coldplay chose a familiar path. When things get stale or you need a creative jolt, hire Eno. Eno co-produced Viva La Vida with Markus Dravs and Rik Simpson, guiding Coldplay into its “experimental” period. The results speak for themselves. Not only did Coldplay emerge from the creative desert, but the band has since reliably filled stadiums with glow sticks and joy. Martin’s Peter Pan energy might be too much for you, but in a dark world, a little technicolor light from a happy rock band is welcome.

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