We are increasingly likely to find ourselves in places with background music. No composers have thought to write for these modern spaces, which represent 30% of our musical experience.
Brian EnoRead
People do dismiss ambient music, don't they? They call it 'easy listening,' as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Ambient music is often underestimated and regarded as simplistic, despite its depth.
In this quote, Brian Eno highlights how ambient music is frequently dismissed as mere 'easy listening.' This perspective underestimates the complexity and emotional depth of the genre, implying that music must always be challenging to engage with, rather than appreciating the subtleties and the experiences it can evoke.
Themes
Ambient MusicEasy ListeningDismissalAppreciationComplexity
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a music discussion to challenge stereotypes about certain genres.
More from Brian Eno
All quotes βI think that technology is always invented for historical reasons, to solve a historical problem. But they very soon reveal themselves to be capable of doing things that aren't historical that nobody had ever thought of doing before.
Brian EnoRead
When I first started making ambient music, I was setting up systems using synthesizers that generated pulses more or less randomly. The end result is a kind of music that continuously changes. Of course, until computers came along, all I could actually present of that work was a piece of its output.
Brian EnoRead
In the future, you won't buy artists' works; you'll buy software that makes original pieces of 'their' works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.
Brian EnoRead
Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.
Brian EnoRead
The big message of gospel is that you don't have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.
Brian EnoRead
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