436 - Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets

I must confess that, as a musician, I was only familiar with Eno's ambient work. I knew of his glam rock background but hadn't listened to any of it before.

This is an album that I thought was okay, but too experimental on the first listen. Each additional listen exposes more about the songs that I enjoy. Many songs sound like Ziggy Stardust jamming with Frank Zappa. When I heard "Blank Frank," I immediately remembered PiL's Metal Box. I can see how John Lydon was inspired by Here Come the Warm Jets when doing MB. Honestly, I can see how many people found things they liked from this album. Shoot, "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" sounds like much of a huge swath of college rock bands of the past 30 years (even B'ham's Teen Getaway's songs bare some resemblance to the sound of this song). Not only does the album sound great, but to hear all of the things Eno did during making (directing musicians to play as they felt compelled while watching him dance, use of tape-loops to create samples, post-production antics with the recorded efforts, his starting off singing in nonsense to the backing track and then formulating lyrics from those sounds) makes a musical geek like myself giddy.

If you are a casual listener, you probably won't get much from this. I hesitate to say that any of the songs are catchy. OH!!! Surely I'm not the only person that hears the similarity between the piano in "On Some Faraway Beach" and Bob Seger's "Still the Same"!

Songs I knew I liked: None

Songs I didn't know but now like: "Needles in the Camel's Eye," "Baby's on Fire," "On Some Faraway Beach," "Dead Finks Don't Talk," and "Some of Them are Old"

Songs I can go the rest of my life without hearing again: Maybe "Blank Frank," but I think I'm going to be listening to this album a few more times over the coming weeks and see how much more the album grows on me.