Wikimedia
Few individuals have shaped the sound and trajectory of modern music quite like Brian Eno. Born in 1948 in Suffolk, England, Eno initially rose to fame as a member of the glam rock band Roxy Music in the early 1970s. Since then, he has carved out a niche as a visionary in the world of ambient music and as a producer of seminal albums for artists like David Bowie, Talking Heads, and U2. His influential work has consistently pushed the boundaries of how we understand and interact with sound. He wrote the following diary entry—on the relationship between technological imperfections and artistic expression—in December of 1995.
The Diary Entry
19th December 1995
Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit – all these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided.
It’s the sound of failure: so much of modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.
Note to the artist: when the medium fails conspicuously, and especially if it fails in new ways, the listener believes something is happening beyond its limits.
Further Reading
Brian Eno’s 1995 diary was published with the title, A Year with Swollen Appendices, and it is comfortably one of the most enjoyable, thought-provoking, and insightful diaries I have ever read.
Also…
- Brian Eno at Wikipedia
- In 2021, Faber published a 25th Anniversary Edition of Eno’s diary
- Brian Eno Reveals the Hidden Purpose of All Art (New York Times)
Diary entry excerpted from A Year with Swollen Appendices by Brian Eno. Copyright by Brian Eno 1996. Reprinted with permission.
Leave a Reply