What matters in modern music is not the part you can write down, the words and the tune, but the rest – the texture, the atmosphere, the references and associations.
BRIAN ENOQuite often, and in fact more often, I would say, I’m struggling all the way through to think, “What is it I like about this? What is the personality of this thing I’m hearing that I like so much?”
More Brian Eno Quotes
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The reason I don’t tour is that I don’t know how to front a band. What would I do? I can’t really play anything well enough to deal with that situation.
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I can see the use and value of religion, just as I can see the use of mud wrestling, yoga, astronomy and sadomasochism. but I reject the idea that you can’t be a deep human being without it or any of them.
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I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice.
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When I was working with Talking Heads what would happen typically is that they would go out and start playing a track, and I would always run the tape.
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I hate the rock music tradition. I can’t bear it!
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I hate the thought that someone had picked up one of my song records and was really excited about it, and walks [out of] a record shop with On Land and is disappointed because it isn’t what they wanted.
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Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.
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It’s easy to forget that your best work is done when your attention is fully engaged.
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It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.
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Every increase in your knowledge is a simultaneous decrease. You learn and you unlearn at the same time. A new certainty is a new doubt as well.
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One often makes music to supplement one’s world.
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The muscles are there simply to serve the head. But that isn’t how traditional players work at all; musicians know that their muscles have a lot of stuff going on as well. They’re using their whole body to make music, in fact.
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The thing that obsesses me more than anything is waste – the waste of human intelligence and creativity.
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Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!
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I’m fascinated by musicians who don’t completely understand their territory; that’s when you do your best work.
BRIAN ENO