1975’s Discreet Music, Brian Eno’s first foray into ambient music, always reminds me of the Rodney Yee yoga videos my ex-wife used to play. Ten minutes of the insipid music playing behind Yee’s insufferably zen calm voice, and I was ready to assume Destroy Television Pose.
Asked about Discreet Music a while back, my pal William Honeycutt said astutely, “It’s music for when you don’t want to listen to music.” That said, it’s the perfect musical accompaniment to a coma. And I’ll bet it sounds great when you’re listening to another album at higher volume. Discreet Music can hardly be accused of drawing attention to itself; it’s too busy oozing silently into the aether without your noticing.
Discreet Music falls into the fine tradition established by Erik Satie, the French father of “furniture music.” Satie was known to carry a hammer wherever he went, and I can only assume its function was to ward off the attacks of discerning citizens outraged by his monotonous Ogives, Sarabandes, Gnossienes, and Gymnopédies. Satie also refused to talk while eating, out of fear of strangling. He should probably have worried more about his dinner companions taking his garroting into their own hands.
The title track makes up side A. It goes on for 30-plus minutes and is designed to turn your brain into rice pudding. To say nothing happens is an overstatement; it’s akin to listening to a jacuzzi, and I avoid jacuzzis because you never know who’s peed in them.
On side B Eno enters the elevator muzak sweepstakes with three variations on Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon on D Major.” Elevators scare a lot of people because they occasionally malfunction and plummet 44 floors to the detriment of all aboard. Elevators scare me because of music like this.
All joking aside, there’s no denying Discreet Music is calming. But when I’m agitated I reach for my revolver, like any red-blooded American. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying Discreet Music doesn’t calm me one whit; I’m an angry driver, and listening to it in my car actually increased my road rage. I kept thinking about the lucky jerks around me cranking Lil Uzi Vert’s “Futsal Shuffle 2020,” and could barely stifle the urge to drive them off the road.
Some bands–the Ramones and Motorhead spring to mind–do the same thing over and over again, much to the love of their fans. But most of your great musicians are constantly evolving, which is why I had no trouble with Eno’s progression from the avant-rock of his first two LP– 1974’s Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)–to 1975’s Another Green World, on which he first dipped a tentative English toe into the wallflower anodyne.
But there’s a gulf–if not an abyss–between the quasi-ambient rock of Another Green World and its follow-up Discreet Music; not much happens on Another Green World’s title track, but it’s undeniably lovely, while “The Big Ship” climbs to an enthralling climax of the sort you’ll look for in vain on Discreet Music. On the latter tune one’s lifted by oceanic swells. On Discreet Music the ocean’s dead calm as far as the ear can hear.
Modern Life is hectic and difficult, and loads of people have turned to Eno’s music for airports; it’s a guaranteed calmative, and unlike valium, you needn’t worry about becoming addicted to the stuff. Or do you? There may be millions of empty-eyed people out there playing Discreet Music on their MP3 headsets, blissfully drooling. Me, I think I’ll stick with Danny Brown. Recommended track: “Ain’t It Funny.”
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D+
