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We’re going through this super-uptight era, which I think comes entirely from literacy, actually. It’s the result of machines that were designed as word processors being used for making music.

Brian Eno

For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.
BRIAN ENO

Combination Form Kind Magic
The tools are evolving, and people’s interests are evolving as well. So, suddenly people like to hear bands, people like Devendra Banhart or the xx, bands that make a kind of virtue of sloppiness.
BRIAN ENO

Hands People Sloppiness
I occasionally meet people and they say, ‘Oh, I was born to Discreet Music’… They always have very weird eyes, those people.
BRIAN ENO

Born Eye Occasionally People
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.
BRIAN ENO

Certain Messages Rich
Be the first to not do what nobody has ever thought of not doing before.
BRIAN ENO

Doing Firsts Nobody
I think the idea that people walk around to music is very interesting. They are actually creating the soundtrack to their lives as they walk around to it.
BRIAN ENO

Creating Ideas Thinking
Think inside the work – outside the work
BRIAN ENO

Inside Thinking Work
Let’s do something else.”And you always think “Oh my God I’ve never done anything at all like that before.” But, of course, in retrospect, and to an outsider, they’ll say, “Oh, yeah that’s typical Eno.
BRIAN ENO

Anything End never Outsider Something Think
Set up a situation that presents you with something slightly beyond your reach.
BRIAN ENO

Beyond Reach Situation
A big ego isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 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.
BRIAN ENO

Ego Mean Risk
When I work there are two distinct phases: the phase of pushing the work along, getting something to happen, where all the input comes from me, and phase two, where things start to combine in a way that wasn’t expected or predicted by what I supplied.
BRIAN ENO

Come Happen Identity Moving Something Term
As struggles go, being an artist isn’t that much of one.
BRIAN ENO

Artist Being One Struggle
The thing that obsesses me more than anything is waste – the waste of human intelligence and creativity.
BRIAN ENO

Creativity Humans Waste
Saying that cultural objects have value is like saying that telephones have conversations.
BRIAN ENO

Conversation Object Telephone
But now you see the results of that in people who are completely crippled unless they know that they have the possibility of “cut and paste” and “undo.” And “undo” and “undo” and “undo” and “undo” and “undo” again.
BRIAN ENO

Criped People See Undo Unless
I hate the rock music tradition. I can’t bear it!
BRIAN ENO

Bears Hate Rocks
I hate talking about music, to tell you the truth.
BRIAN ENO

Hate Talking
The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.
BRIAN ENO

Brother Distance Philosophical
I thought it was magic to be able to catch something identically on tape and then be able to play around with it, run it backwards; I thought that was great for years.
BRIAN ENO

Play Running Years
The artists of the past who impressed me were the ones who really focused their work.
BRIAN ENO

Artist Impressed Past
I’m struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity.
BRIAN ENO

Computer Driven Technology
I think that there’s something that I still like about the fact of a package, like the latest report from somebody. “Okay, this is what they’re up to now; this is what they’re doing; who’s working with them?
BRIAN ENO

Facts Okay Thinking
Rationality is what we do to organize the world, to make it possible to predict. Art is the rehearsal for the inapplicability and failure of that process.
BRIAN ENO

Art Rehearsal World
My guitar only has five strings ’cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.
BRIAN ENO

Chord Cutting Guitar Play
I hate the way CDs just drone on for bloody hours and you stop caring.
BRIAN ENO

Bloddy Caring Hate
Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You’re glad someone’s done it but you don’t necessarily want to listen to it.
BRIAN ENO

Avant Done Garde Research
Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.
BRIAN ENO

Art Philosophical Photography

We’re going through this super-uptight era, which I think comes entirely from literacy, actually. It’s the result of machines that were designed as word processors being used for making music.

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Popular Authors

We’re going through this super-uptight era, which I think comes entirely from literacy, actually. It’s the result of machines that were designed as word processors being used for making music.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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