Brian Eno once said that his reputation is “far bigger than [his] sales.” We’d have to agree with that. Not everyone knows Brian Eno’s name, but they’ve more than likely heard his music and influence through the years. It’s no surprise that the music world’s best non-musician musician has some great personal taste in music. Let’s take a look at just four of Brian Eno’s favorite albums of all time!
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1. ‘Afrodisiac’ by Fela Kuti & The Africa 70
In an interview with The Quietus from back in 2016, Brian Eno quite generously listed out his favorite albums of all time. Unsurprisingly, Eno listed Afrodisiac by Fela Kuti & The Africa 70 as one of his top favorites. Though the record only has four songs, those four songs were nearly perfect in Eno’s opinion.
“There’s no disappointment on the album at all,” said Eno of Afrodisiac.
Those are strong words, but we think he’s using them properly.
2. ‘Count And Spark’ by Joni Mitchell
Brian Eno and Joni Mitchell were more or less from the same era, so it’s not exactly surprising that the former is a big fan of the latter. However, despite loving Count And Spark, Eno did have a bit of criticism for the album.
“An almost perfect album,” said Eno of this particular Mitchell release. “Apart from one mistake… there’s a joke song on it. I think jokes should never be on records, they just don’t last. The record is such an incredibly serious record, it’s one of the most grown-up records ever made in that the things she’s talking about and thinking about are such serious and complicated emotional situations.”
3. ‘Heartland’ by Owen Pallett
Another one of Brian Eno’s favorite albums is a newer indie-rock gem from 2010. And we can even hear some of Eno’s influence on this particular solo release from Owen Pallett, who opted to shed the Final Fantasy moniker for this particular album.
“I remember the first night that I heard this I put it on and I was working late on some visual stuff and I left it on for about seven hours and I just didn’t want to change it,” said Eno of Heartland. “I had it on random shuffle so it just kept coming up with surprises.”
4. ‘Fresh’ by Sly And The Family Stone
Fresh by Sly And The Family Stone is a fan-favorite 1973 album closely associated with the golden age of funk and progressive soul music. Eno wasn’t extremely familiar with Sly before discovering this record. According to Eno, while visiting the home of some friends who liked to “smoke a lot of grass”, he got a bit of a contact high and heard this record for the first time, which only heightened his experience.
“It’s so sketchy, the whole thing, it hardly holds together,” said Eno of Fresh. “It’s like little flicks of paint. Instead of an organized composition, it’s just people throwing in these little touches and somehow it coheres. It’s like the first time I saw a Jackson Pollock or something.”
Photo by Erica Echenberg/Redferns
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