Re: (TV) Videos /' Hummable' Melodies/hooks in Television's &

["Mark G. Ryan" <mgryan@cruzio.com>]

"jeff" <blueweb@Access4less.net> wrote:
> 
> Under what criteria could Brian Eno be considered a 'superstar'?
> If one of the criteria is name recognition, then I doubt that the
> general public would be any more familiar with his name than that
> of oh, say Tom Verlaine or Richard Lloyd.

Perhaps "superstar" was overstating the case, but I don't think so.

For one thing, Eno was hired by Microsoft to write that 
"bling-tink-tink-tink' sound that Windows 95 makes when you 
turn on your computer.  (Wonder if that was Paul Allen's idea?).  
So I guess that makes him the most widely heard recording artist
of all time. ;-)  I read that he was paid $35,000 for 3.5 seconds 
of music, which would also put him at the top of the pay scale. 

(I wonder who wrote the new Microsoft sound that Windows 98 makes,
the one that sounds suspiciously like "The audience is listening 
to...THX"?  I've always thought that for a Microsoft OS, a loud,
ripping fart would be more appropriate. Or maybe a recording of
John Lydon's famous quip at the last Sex Pistol's show, "Ever get 
the feeling you've been cheated?")

For another thing, most fans of Roxy Music, David Bowie, Talking Heads, 
or Iggy Pop, or U2 knows who Eno is.  That's a lot of folks.  His bald
head is instantly recognizable to most of them, despite the fact that 
Eno never performs live and in some cases is more of a producer than an
artist.

Finally, he has sold, and continues to sell, enough records to stay
in the public eye and never be without a major label.  Not platinum
sellers, but not reissued by Collector's Corner either.  His major solo 
albums have never been out of print and are found in all record stores,
together with his boxed set.

Richard Lloyd certainly has played with a lot of different bands, and he 
deserves to be a superstar on the basis of his talent alone.  But even 
the Matthew Sweet band was never as big a deal as, say, Roxy Music or the 
Talking Heads.

Since Lloyd and Verlaine both take a lot of criticism for their singing
voices, what about Eno's singing?   Chrissie Hynde had this to say about 
Eno, whom she admires:  "His singing is not unlike the shriek of a hare 
that has just caught an air pellet up the ass" (New Music Express, quoted 
in Rolling Stone, Sept. 12, 1974, which misspelled her name "Hynd"--this
was before the Pretenders).  God bless Chrissie--there was a time when
punks did not mince words.  This quote has an interesting Anglo-American
angle: nobody says "hare" in the USA, but something about "caught an
air gun pellet up the ass" does not sound British.  Wonder if Eno's label 
used it in his press kit?

Mark
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