Brian Eno Quotes
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It infuriates me that stuff from the Internet routinely doesn't include all the credits. Because as soon as I listen to something, if I like it, I want to know, "Who's the bass player?" "Who did that?" "Who's the engineer on this?
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The big message of gospel is that you don't have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.
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When I've finally got the title, I think, "Okay, yes, now I know where we are. Now I know what it is. Fine, that must be finished or nearly finished.
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My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when - and he won't necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.
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People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.
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I'd been making music that was intended to be like painting, in the sense that it's environmental, without the customary narrative and episodic quality that music normally has. I called this 'ambient music.' But at the same time I was trying to make visual art become more like music, in that it changed the way that music changes.
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A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you're prepared to take the risk of trying them out.
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Of course, like anybody I repeat myself endlessly, but I don't know that I'm doing it, usually.
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Most people have no idea what something would sound like if it wasn't an MP3.
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Agressive music can only shock you once. Afterwards its impact declines. It's inevitable.
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I think everyone's inherently snobbish. Things that are very popular are not taken seriously, because the snobbish side of one says, 'Well, if everyone likes it it can't be that good.' Whereas if only I and a couple of other people like it, then it must be really something special.
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If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.
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One of the things you're doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.
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For me it's always contingent on getting a sound-the sound always suggests what kind of melody it should be. So it's always sound first and then the line afterwards.
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In England and Europe, we have this huge music called ambient - ambient techno, ambient house, ambient hip-hop, ambient this, ambient that.
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Our experience of any painting is always the latest line in a long conversation we've been having with painting. There's no way of looking at art as though you hadn't seen art before.
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Zappa was very technical and impressed by things that were musically challenging - weird time signatures, strange keys, awkward chord sequences. Zappa was important to me as an example of everything I didn't want to do. I'm very grateful to him, actually.
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Everybody is entertained to death.
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Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others.
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I hate the rock music tradition. I can't bear it!
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I believe in singing to such an extent that, if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing becomes a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for cooperation with others. This seems to be about the most important thing a school could do for you.
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If you want to make someone feel emotion, you have to make them let go. Listening to something is an act of surrender.
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Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven't been made easier technically.
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I've got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.