Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets Poll ~ Oh no Oh no Oh no Oh no Oh no!

easier to vote for least favorite tbh

True Shakey (Driving Me Backwards imho the only weak one on here). Still tho,

my my my

Driving Me Backwards imho the only weak one on here

correct!

Such a drag of a song on an otherwise perfect album. Torn between Faraway Beach, Dead Finks and Warm Jets myself tbh.

When I first saw the thread, I thought "hmm, definitely 'Needles in the Camel's Eye'" but looking at the tracklisting again, I'm now not quite sure.

the 9 solid songs all have some unique, stand-out characteristic that the others don't

"Some Of Them Are Old" for that sublime slide guitar loop

I listened to this album in the car for three days straight last week.

Anyway the first three songs are so phenomenal that I can't choose -- he's never topped them.

I think I voted "Baby's On Fire" last time so here's a vote for "Needles in the Camel's Eye."

Never quite warmed to this one. It strikes me as vulgar at places. Like a bunch of Disney melodies with some Zappa-like scorn over it. The title track in particular reminds me of Hot Rats. Went with Needles in the Camel's Eye cause it's a good take on Bowie's take on the Velvets. Love Another Green World completely.

scorn? for who/what?

I love AGW too, but the vulgarity -- a correct term -- is exactly what I love about it. IF you didn't know the biographical detritus, the record would still sound like a declaration of independence.

yeah I agree that it is both vulgar and cartoonish *and* that these are strengths, not weaknesses. But Zappa/sarcasm/scorn I don't hear.

I haven't listened to this one in a while. It's my least favourite of the big four pop albums. I want to go with Faraway Beach, but I have to relisten.

Never quite warmed to this one. It strikes me as vulgar at places. Like a bunch of Disney melodies with some Zappa-like scorn over it.

i used to share an office with a very soberminded korean in grad school, and one of the few times he commented on my music was 'warm jets': he wanted to know why i would listen to 'music for children' when i still appreciated mozart and schubert and whatever

AGW feels organic to me. The vulgarity there is the sort that comes out when you're at peace with yourself. On HCTWJ it sounds more like throwing shit on the wall and hence scornful. So like instrumental Zappa not vocal Zappa. That's why I mentioned Hot Rats.

Like I'll Come Running is also a vulgar and cartoonish song in a sense but it's completely beautiful and captivating. Something like On Some Faraway Beach sounds manipulative in comparison imo.

On Some Faraway beach is A warped version of " Still The One" by Bob Seger

Still the Same*. Prefer Seger and yes, that captures the distinction well actually.

I'd never call I'll Come Running vulgar!

My favorite album of his. Kind of an impossible choice. Probably "Needles" just because it floats in out of nowhere at full speed with vaguely annoying guitars and vocals that seem to be being improvised while they're being sung, and the song only really figures out what it's doing during the bridge. I bought the album at the Vassar College bookstore as a cut-out in like '86 or '87, knowing that "Eno" meant "important" but having been slightly underwhelmed by Desert Island Selection (one of the first CDs I ever bought). And then the song goes on to fade out before you can really get a grip on what just happened. Ultimately it hit me at the time as an incomprehensible blast of catchy weirdness from some other place...much more than anything else Eno ever did.

"Still The Same", yeah! I'm drunkish

Baby's On Fire was tempting, but it's a little too too. Same for a lot of the (wonderful) tracks on this album. Needles, more than many things he did, is just an odd dream that appears and disappears before you can really come to grips with it.

xxxp Well it is sort of radically earnest, which can strike random soberminded colleagues as vulgar. Not unlike Still the Same which I also love unabashedly.

Never quite warmed to this one. It strikes me as vulgar at places. Like a bunch of Disney melodies with some Zappa-like scorn over it. The title track in particular reminds me of Hot Rats. Went with Needles in the Camel's Eye cause it's a good take on Bowie's take on the Velvets. Love Another Green World completely.

Uh what?!?!? Even mentioning Zappa in the same breath as Eno is 0_o

"Cindy Tells Me" is a little scornful.

I really love this album, though. Voting "Baby's on Fire", not least for the Fripp solo.

Title track probably. When it comes down to it. Love this album though, I even like "Driving Me Backwards", although Kevin Ayers' "Song from a Bottom of a Well" did it first and better. "Cindy Tells Me" is a bit sneery, true.

Yeah, I like "Driving Me Backwards" too.

I don't. Other than that, this is one of my favorite solo Eno records and this poll is impossible. At least half a dozen I could pick.

probably just gonna vote "Some OF Them Are Old" for the drones and slide guitar

sleeve, my kind of people

also gotta disagree with Alfred here, side 2 >> side 1 although Fripp does kill it on that solo

the Dead Finks-Some Of Them Are Old-HCTWJ run is maybe my favorite half-LP-side out of all of his work

It's tough but I went with Needles. The immediate runners up are Paw Paw, Finks, Cindy, and Baby -- but they're all pretty damn great.

For me it's between Needles and Blank Frank. The former is just a great driving pop song with careening guitars while the latter has that weird calliope thing in the middle that is just too demented.

I didn't like Velvet Goldmine much, but "Needle" was used to perfect effect in it. That's kind of the only way I can elevate one of the first four songs above the rest - they're all excellent

"dead finks don't talk" for paul thompson's wonderful drum pattern and the hand claps that come in after the guitar solo in the "bless my soul" section. and yeah, the sequencing at the end is lovely. title track could be looped for hours; when the drums finally sync up it's a really nice moment.

regarding vulgarity, i once read an eno interview wherein he confirms that the title is a reference to urolagnia. but that's rather oblique in my opinion and i simply can't understand where the zappa comparisons are coming from

What can we say? The man loves his piss. Literally.

thinking about it, this album really should be ranked in terms of moments rather than songs. i agree that the blipping, chirping slide guitar on "some of them are old" is one of the strongest parts of this record. but i also think the song itself lacks momentum ("remember me" part goes on forever it seems like), and then BOOM title track kicks in and it's total bliss (similar effect when the lyrics to "baby's on fire" come in, after that interminable intro). part of me thinks that the songs being boring or hackneyed or kind half-assed in terms of pop artistry is what makes the cool moments feel so sublime. the technique is more or less inverted on "another green world" -- the long droney bits make a song like "i'll come running" feel magical, in much the same way that i'll do backflips for some bottom-of-the-barrel 1960s top 40 single after a four-hour brötzmann binge or whatever

the title track because of how the drums sneak up on you

i don't think this album is nearly as good as the two that followed it.

actually idk. i am listening to it again and some of the tracks i thought i didn't like are sounding very good.

Treats me good just like an armchair

i really think that the lines people point to that seem to suggest some kind of unsavory sexual politics on eno's part are best read in context. everybody knows the lyrics on this LP are total dada word salad free association and coupled with eno's sort of androgynous self-presentation, stuff like that "armchair" bit read more like an accidental satire of big macho rock lyrics, rather than some kind of sly pseudo-poetic misogyny-but-i'm-an-artist-haha, y'know?

Huh i always thought it was "just like an object"

Either way I always heard that libe as eno being the object/armchair

Now I've found a sweetheart
Treats me good, just like an armchair

xpost that's kind of a cool reading.

anyway, here's chrissie hynde interviewing eno in NME:

"Mexican pornography is an interesting island of thought because they seem to be heavily into excretory functions. The traditional American view is that anything issued from the body is dirty. It's incredibly puritanical and it resents bodily fluids, so if one is trying to debase a woman, you cover them with that and hence you get the fabulous term 'Golden Showers' - the term for pissing on someone, which some well- known rock musicians are said to be very involved in . .

"Here come the warm jets?"

"That's certainly a reference."

http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/nmetxt.html

huh. he seems really gross and weird in that interview.

lol yeah

"the limp handshake (handshake?)"

in fairness, chrissie hynde doesn't come out looking particularly good either

20 year old me would want to kill me for saying this but:

I actually prefer Stranded to Here Comes The Warm Jets.

That being said, there are a few good tunes on here (the first two especially), but it is the weakest of his 70s vocal albums.

I voted for the title track.

Even mentioning Zappa in the same breath as Eno is 0_o

I just remembered that Adrian Belew ended up working with Bowie because Eno saw him playing at a Zappa gig in Germany. Though I believe Eno had just got free tickets and thought, what the hell I'm not doing anything else tonight.

I love Driving Me Backwards, had no idea it would be considered a weak link.

Voting for Baby's On Fire though. Intense!

Voted Dead Finks, because his Bryan Ferry impression (which sounds like he's doing Elvis) cracks me up

Listening to this now. You're all wrong about Driving Me Backwards, it's probably the best song on Side A, opening track possibly aside

Obviously TTM is the better album but you all knew that already

i had a really hard time deciding between 'some of them are old' and the title track. it's hard for me to separate the two since they work so well together.

xxp if I want overwrought howling I'll listen to a Peter Hamill record ;)

Driving Me Backwards is some crazed misanthropic ahead-of-its-time goth vamp with exceptional sonics and a thickening plot

I like it too but wouldn't single it out

Threw my vote at DMB in the end as it is so bad and hated but the bookends deserve it as much idk w/e

On Some Faraway beach is A warped version of " Still The Same" by Bob Seger

concerning the warm jets, they are on the cover. there is this game card with the policeman next to the woman in an obvious position on the beach on the left of the eno photograph.

another small little detail concerning "on some faraway beach". it was released in 1973, "still the same" is from 1978. go figure who influenced whom...

There's lots of great stuff on here. While I would choose most other tracks over Driving Me Backwards I don't consider it weak either.
It was a tie for me between On Some Faraway Beach and Dead Finks Don't Talk, went for the mighty Beach.

i see the Eno/Zappa connection. both were 70s misanthropic studio wizards that enjoyed making mutant deconstructions of rock n roll/doo wop.

What? Eno has never ever been misanthropic.

allmusic: a "self-described non-musician [...] Eno championed theory over practice, serendipity over forethought, and texture over craft"

i think eno's theory of the "study as instrument" and his reliance on people who were competent enough to actually play guitar, drums, etc. distinguish him from zappa, who was a multi-instrumentalist and very much a control freak. whereas eno's well-documented use of chance methods sort of put him an a spot that's less studio-creep, more open to improvisation or at least input from the musicians he worked with (zappa almost always got full songwriting credit right from the start -- HCTWJ, at least, is different in that respect). it's also hard to imagine eno telling his band how to behave, what drugs not to take, etc.

as for the music, i guess you can call it misanthropic? you could point me to where that is, but i've never heard it. eno himself never comes off as such in interviews. he seemed / seems to be genuinely interested in humans and all the world has to offer. isn't that so? can you even imagine zappa being involved in something like the long now foundation? eno's politics are pretty right on.

i'll give you "mutant deconstructions" i guess, but i'd argue that's being generous to zappa. more like tasteless parodies. dude had zero sense of humor and, as has been discussed at length on other threads, his lyrics are full of just super gross sexism, homophobia, and machismo that is super direct and unpleasant.

eno's music is the opposite of misanthropic

yeah budo jeru OTM - Zappa and eno are not in the same wheelhouse.

I give you all that on Eno but I feel there is a definite bitter (manipulative, vulgar, yeah misanthropic) streak to Eno maybe up until AGW. Like early Roxy and solo albums are tastier than Zappa sure, but it's not that different of a wheelhouse. Ferry had enough genuine leading man gusto to tamper it a bit and the difference after Eno left is telling. Many moments on this album make me think of Hot Rats by sounds alone but also a certain feeling of being pulled on by a bullshiter. Like, the melodies on On Some Faraway Beach and the title track are genuinely pretty but he sort of plays against them in a cheap kitschy way as opposed to enhancing them as he started doing in all his later stuff. Like it's a difference, that we were talking about during the Talking Heads poll, between early and late Byrne. The nervous hateful wreck vs a guru. Eno wore the guru better but Byrne was a much more likable wreck.

Also I agree, Zappa is a dumbass both as a person and as an artist. Still, Freak Out and We're Only in It for the Money have moments where all his miserable bullshit sort of becomes poignant (Mom & Dad comes to mind). I actually prefer those to Here Come The Warm Jets.

Think of the pretty pars of Peaches En Regalia and tell me you don't hear the similarity! But ok, can probably phrase it all better once I clear my head a bit. But again, I would probably go on a "Still the Same is a million times better than On Some Faraway Beach" rant so I should shut up forever.

parts*

i feel like these early, overstuffed albums are brimming with affirmative exuberance rather than any kind of mockery or scorn. sometimes absurdism can feel hostile, but the dada lyrics here just seem like a way to untether the songs from any single meaning, allowing the album to retain some of the improvisational energy of the recording process

Eno is a masterful self-publicist, so we should take "non-musician" for the delicious nonsense it is. He plays excellent keyboards, although perhaps not in 1973.

i spent a year of my life living completely inside this album. just about literally. fave song at beginning: "needle in the camel's eye." fave song in middle: "on some faraway beach." fave song at end: "here come the warm jets."

since there's been hardly any mention of "blank frank," i'll add that i love how the hand percussion turns around on every verse, having played through the metric changes on the instrumental interludes as if they weren't there.

Dead Finks Don't Talk is a piss-take of Ferry, right?

In hindsight, I wonder if Eno knew of 'Maggot Brain' in how on the track 'Here Come the Warm Jets' he kinda keeps the drums completely out of the mix until the last part of the tune. I'd imagine there is a drum take on the whole tune, but either it was off or it just sounded better having the guitars, bass and synth on that front half and slow mixing in the drums. How it is mixed reminds me a bit of how Clinton created the studio Maggot Brain in that way.

between this and the Talking Heads poll this has been an Olympics record-breaking month for the amount of complete bullshit wittered on ILM

“Dead Finks is not about Bryan Ferry. After all the music was recorded and the words written, Chris Thomas (my producer and Roxy’s as well) said, ‘you’ll get me shot for that track. It’s obviously about Bryan.’ So I listened back to it and it obviously was. It was certainly something I hadn’t realised. Essentially all these songs have no meaning that I invested in them. Meanings can be generated within their own frame-work. It may be a very esoteric thing to talk about but I don’t think it’s entirely out of the question.” -- Brian Eno, 1973

Surely the faux Ferry inhabitance at 1.14 in "Dead Finks Don't Talk" is the best recorded on tape

It's dead on

I have on occasion taken off my earbuds during the title track to check if there actually is a bell going off somewhere. I love it. Also love two drum kits playing practically the same thing at the same time.

Like early Roxy and solo albums are tastier than Zappa sure, but it's not that different of a wheelhouse. Ferry had enough genuine leading man gusto to tamper it a bit and the difference after Eno left is telling.

It is that different of a wheelhouse(?) As for Roxy, Eno twiddled knobs + wore feather boas, it was Ferry's band.

Think of the pretty parts of Peaches En Regalia and tell me you don't hear the similarity!

I can't hear the similarity.

I mean, I don't think it's crazy to see black humour and misanthropy in a rock song called "Baby's on Fire" that is literally about a woman on fire and written with this tone:

Baby's on fire
Better throw her in the water
Look at her laughing
Like a heifer to the slaughter

Baby's on fire
And all the laughing boys are bitching
Waiting for photos
Oh the plot is so bewitching

Rescuers row, row
Do your best to change the subject
Blow the wind blow, blow
Lend some assistance to the object

Photographers snip snap
Take your time, she's only burning
This kind of experience
Is necessary for her learning

Idk what the digression about Juanita and Juan is really about, though.

^ but Eno has never ever been misanthropic

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I listened to this album in the car for three days straight last week.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 3, 2017 11:01 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was precisely what prompted me to poll it, randomly grabbed the cd out of a box and played it on the road for a couple of days. A week later my appreciation for it was completely revived and upgraded.
Shame someone brought Zappa into this, he's the last person on my mind when thinking about Eno. Always though of 'Baby's On Fire's lyrics as a critique on gossip/press/voyeurism/celebrity cult.

Perfect album, impossible to vote in my own poll, but will give it to the title track.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wow, interesting spread, everything got at least one vote

I didn't realize the title track was as widely loved as it is. I always thought of it as a gem tucked away behind needle and baby's on fire.

Me neither! Expected Needles to walk this tbh. But the title track is such an immense anthem. One of the best album closing tracks I know.

(great turnout btw ty ilm)

The chaotic drums falling into place suddenly is a glorious moment.

^ Top 5 moments in art rock or pre-punk or whatever this is imo

Always though of 'Baby's On Fire's lyrics as a critique on gossip/press/voyeurism/celebrity cult.

I don't think this contradicts the idea that there is a misanthropic element in there. (Zappa critiqued those things too, tbf, not that it was the first comparison that came to mind for me either.)

Anyway, I didn't expect the title track to win either but it is also really satisfying.

Like, I think he's pretty scornful/misanthropic towards the laughing boys and the photographers but I also don't get a lot of compassion towards the woman from the narrator.

very satisfying results! my top 4 is the same as the results, it just depends on the day and listening context.

Providence-based brass band What Cheer? Brigade covers the title track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuL6yEHv7xA

I rarely vote, but voted title track.

On Some Faraway Beach sounds quieter than the rest of the album, which irritates me. Does anyone else get this?

Nope. Not on my cd at least.

how did i miss this?
i love the whole album for many of the reasons mentioned above, overstuffed exuberance included (driving me backwards is the only song i find genuinely irritating)
one of my bands covered warm jets too
if i had voted it would have been for "some of them are old" because of how it leads into title track, they are like one song to me <3
"baby's on fire" is probably my emotional favorite but i don't feel it needed my vote.

i didn't vote either but would've voted for dead finks to make sure it got at least one vote. surprised paw paw negro blowtorch got so few votes tbh. i def prefer all the weird rockers to the more melodic ballady stuff, though it's all great.

Maybe it's the way the drums are kept in the background that makes it sound quiet to me. It jars oddly.

Interesting to compare to the 2008 results from POLL: Favorite Track on Eno's "Here Comes the Warm Jets"

Needles In The Camel's Eye 21
Baby's On Fire 17
On Some Faraway Beach 11
Here Come The Warm Jets 11
Cindy Tells Me 9
The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch 9
Dead Finks Don't Talk 5
Blank Frank 4
Driving Me Backwards 2
Some Of Them Are Old 2

Same top 4 sequence, except that the title track shot forward from fourth to become the dominating favorite. Rest also looks the same, except TPPNB collapses from a nine-vote constituency to a lone voter. No idea what to make of either development but against an otherwise unchanging background it'd be interesting to think about reasons why.

One vote for Paw Paw is ludicrous. I didn't vote for it either, mind you. Almost did.

I also forgot to vote, love it all - when there was that ilm 70s rock poll a few years ago I had this album #1, it is easily my favourite "rock" album

if i had voted it would have been for "some of them are old" because of how it leads into title track, they are like one song to me <3

this was the reasoning behind my vote! :)

Blank frank is the siren, he's the air-raid, he's the crater
He's on the menu, on the table, he's the knife and he's the waiter

Eno: underrated singer and lyricist.

not underrated by me
i love his lyrics, they span the spectrum from ridiculous to poignant and are super fun to sing
and tbh i have never disliked his singing, though it probably isn't for everyone

blank frank is the messenger of your doom and your destruction

not underrated by me

Underrated by Eno for sure! Singing and particularly writing lyrics are among the things he's done the least in the past few decades.

Spider and I sit watching the sky
On a world without sound
We knit a web to catch one tiny fly
For our world without sound
We sleep in the mornings
We dream of a ship that sails away
A thousand miles away.

At least as of a few years ago — he talked about it on the Colbert Report and elsewhere — he was getting together with friends to sing on a weekly basis, an exercise in pure pleasure that he meant to keep fun and fresh by saying no recordings allowed. I don't think not doing something for public consumption necessarily means that he undervalues it. Maybe yes maybe no.

He loves singing! He does gospel, etc. Like this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_72UC9npjg

Just clearly he loves doing it more than he loves releasing albums with vocals and lyrics.

Some of them are old but it would help if you could smile
To earn a crooked sixpence you'll walk many crooked miles
And as you do, remember me, remember me.

one of my favorite bit of Eno lyrics.

"Driving Me Backwards" from the June 1, 1974 release is far superior to that on the proper album -- Ayers' cascading basslines add some real punch to the track.

favorite Eno lyric is still "Splish splash, I was raking in the cash/The biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface BUHHHHH"

It was his 70th birthday today, and I'm listening to the Warm Jets record and thinking, as much as I love his ambient work,that I would love to hear more of his singing and (lyrical) songwriting. That said, the 6-disc ambient set he released this year is great too.

Happy Brian Eno Day, all.

Happy belated birthday, Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno!

favorite Eno lyric is still "Splish splash, I was raking in the cash/The biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface BUHHHHH"

Belated happy birthday, Brian!

so this was news to me

"Brian Eno recounts how he (allegedly) pissed in 'Fountain,' Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal, in his 1995 diary A Year with Swollen Appendices"

Brian Eno recounts how he (allegedly) pissed in 'Fountain,' Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal, in his 1995 diary A Year with Swollen Appendices pic.twitter.com/oUqGuB3TRb

— priscilla page (@BBW_BFF) May 16, 2018

in b4 Warm Jets joeks

warm jets jokes must have been going on for decades already?

Yeah hard to get inb4 anything here, this album title famously refers to piss and eno has two separate piss anecdotes in his diary, he’s a piss guy

Yeah I am new to Eno’s sexual proclivities sorry

Damn it, I knew I shouldn't have changed my dn this morning.

Yeah hard to get inb4 anything here, this album title famously refers to piss and eno has two separate piss anecdotes in his diary, he’s a piss guy

The album cover features a photograph of a woman peeing!

"Driving Me Backwards" is my fave (not sure if I voted here). never knew it wasn't rated/liked by others. and although I do love it Warm Jets is my least fave of the '4 vocal albums'.

as for sex, "ooo what to do in a tiny canoe" (Backwater) is my fave playful Eno sex lyric

Correct answer is some of them ate old

brutal