Chance Meeting: The Brian Eno collaborations poll

Anyway! Number One in Britain and successful in the States...

just happened to be listening to the pearl when i logged on right now, so that one.👍🏻

ctrl-f "Remain In Light"
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this is a really tough poll b/c there's different levels of 'collaboration' on all this. did he actually write anything on those Bowie albums? I thought "Warszawa" was his but idk about the rest. ditto with Roxy Music - I don't think he really wrote anything, he was just the weirdo with the synthesizer

either way there's like five I could realistically vote for here, kinda thinking about tossing a vote for his collab with Karl Hyde called "High Life" - when I first heard it I thought it was easily the best thing he'd done in decades. its what I wished the '08 Byrne collaboration was.

Wrong Way Up is also a total classic though something about the production of that album bothers me

Yeah, I don't know where to draw the line here. There's Eno as producer, there's Eno as co-credited artist, there's Eno as co-writer, and then there's Eno as featured guest/player. He's always hands-on if his name is on the record (with the exception of maybe, I dunno, Devo or Edikanfo or something subtle), but I'm not sure when he should or should not formally be considered a collaborator.

I had to think for a while but went with Wrong Way Up

I wouldn’t know where to draw the line, so content for Wikipedia to do the heavy lifting. Not sure why something like Outside or Wah-Wah isn’t listed as a collaboration, guess somehere on the continuum they fall on the wrong side.

Remain in Light seems like a special case here - Eno did a lot more than just produce it, he was practically the 5th Talking Head (and his backing vox are fairly prominent in "Once in a Lifetime"!). But I'm glad it's not here, would make for a much less interesting poll

I agree, it's best that Remain In Light is not on the list, but I feel that Bush Of Ghosts kinda owns this.

Weird but I'd vote for High Life

Remain in Light seems like a special case here - Eno did a lot more than just produce it, he was practically the 5th Talking Head!!

"all songs written by David Byrne & Brian Eno (except "Houses In Motion" and 'The Overload", written by David Byrne, Brian Eno & Jerry Harrison)".

Iirc the credits are more complicated/convoluted than that.

the lodger

Write-in vote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfqY9Wv6p0s

Remain in Light seems like a special case here - Eno did a lot more than just produce it, he was practically the 5th Talking Head (and his backing vox are fairly prominent in "Once in a Lifetime"!).

― frogbs

as opposed to roxy music, where he was the _sixth_ man

the wikipedia article is probably the result of a lengthy ongoing argument between people who think that everything eno farted on is a collaboration who put it in and people who think nothing eno did is truly a "collaboration" and taking it out, hence the piecemeal and arbitrary nature of the list

Eno as featured guest/player

Which I assume doesn't count because there's a few notables missing here.

The two Cluster - Eno collaborations are all kinds of wonderful. I went with "After The Heat".

I've listened to Passengers more than anything else here so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4HSj8IR8GE

Can't ignore Low being in this list, it's got to be that then. I would have loved to vote fot one of the albums with Harold Budd.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Second 801 Live, also always wanted to hear this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Leif_and_the_Longships
That fab cast rewrite of Peter and the Wolf seemed pretty cool, as I dimly recall, "Peter is a hero," and all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rock_Peter_and_the_Wolf

His production of Nico's The End (he all did what he could do).

(No Pussyfooting), although there are too many contenders. This is a lot harder than polling his strictly solo work.

evening star

Voting for Bowie feels like cheating, as those records are mostly Bowie (imo). Voted Cluster & Eno.

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

Top 5 are all stellar, good poll.

Can't say I'm surprised by the winner. Good to see the love shared with a lot of his collaborators