Like all nerds, I revere Brian Eno. When MusicRadar asked for a column about him, I jumped on it. They wanted something about his generative music, and Music For Airports was the obvious choice.
While I was researching, I learned that a couple of airports had tried playing the album in the terminals, and that it had not gone over well. With a little reflection, this is not surprising. Who wants to hear any kind of music in the airport? If I had to pick something, I guess I would pick Eno, but I would rather it just be quiet in there.
I have conflicting feelings about recorded music being played in public spaces. There is vastly more of that happening than in previous decades, especially since every tenth person started carrying around a Bluetooth speaker. The low point recently was when we encountered a lady playing music from one of those things on a hiking trail deep in the Mohonk Preserve. I almost always find it annoying when people play music against my will, but the key word there is “almost”. One of the best things about New York City is hearing a lot of different music out on the street. So I guess my position is, I don’t like when people impose their music on me, unless that music is extremely cool, in which case go right ahead.
Really interesting article, with the details of how the tracks were constructed. I have never found the album icy or unsettling but agree that one has to be in the mood to listen to it, particularly all of the way through. I also find that I need to “cleanse my palate” afterwards with something more obvious, just to get me back into the room.
You capture some of this story in your excellent article in Musicradar. It’s interesting that the moods evoked (“induced unease” and that it “sounds like funeral music”) and the consequent backlash by some airport staff seems to be sort of what Eno intended.
Yeah, Eno is not as listener-hostile as his avant-garde heroes but he’s also not as listener-friendly as his fellow pop producers.
I’ve been taking a wonderful course on songwriting taught by Brian Eno. He had some comments on Music for Airports. I’ll paraphrase. The genesis of the idea came from his sitting in a brand new airport in Koln Germany in the mid 70s. Everything in the airport was new and spectacularly designed. (The airport was designed by Paul Schneider von Esleben, Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk’s father). (It was, at the time, one of the most expensive airports ever built.) And they were playing German disco loudly throughout the whole airport. And he thought it was amazing that they would design a whole airport down to the last door handle, and not think about the music. The music was apparently selected by the cafe staff. So Eno was wondering what would you want to listen to if you were getting on a plane. He feels nervous about plane flights. He thought you didn’t want music that said ‘don’t worry, everything is fine’. So he tried to design music that makes you feel less important, less self-centered. He thought you want music that makes you surrender a little bit because you have very little control over the situation or subsequent events. Music for Airports was his first works deliberately created as functional music. (Some of his music had been being used in functional situations such hospital birthing centers at this point.) He says the project would not have happened if he hadn’t been sitting in an airport bored by the disco music being played. “Boredom is so important… the fear of boredom is destroying us.”