Brian Eno

Brian Eno (EE-no; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is an English musician, record producer and artist. He is known for his pioneering contributions to ambient, electronic and generative music, and for producing, recording, and writing works in rock and pop music. He describes himself as a “non-musician” uninterested in virtuosity, and advocates for using the studio as a compositional tool. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures.

Eno was born in Melton, Suffolk, and studied at Ipswich School of Art and the Winchester School of Art. He joined the glam rock band Roxy Music in 1971, contributing to their first two albums, and left in 1973. In 1974, Eno released his first solo albums, Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). His third, Another Green World (1975), combined rock with minimal instrumental tracks. Eno coined the term “ambient music” to describe music he conceived to be “as ignorable as possible”, and released a string of albums in the genre, including Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1979).

Eno's profile rose when he contributed to the David Bowie albums Low (1977), Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979), known as the Berlin Trilogy, and produced the Talking Heads albums More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979) and Remain in Light (1980). With Daniel Lanois, Eno produced the U2 albums The Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987) — one of the highest-selling albums in history — and Achtung Baby (1991). Eno produced Coldplay's album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, the highest-selling album of 2008, and co-wrote their next album, Mylo Xyloto (2011). He has also produced albums by Ultravox, Devo, Harold Budd, Laraaji, James and Laurie Anderson, and released albums with artists including Robert Fripp, David Byrne, Jon Hassell, Cluster, Roger Eno, John Cale, Karl Hyde, Jon Hopkins and Fred Again. Eno composed the startup music for Windows 95 and has scored films including The Lovely Bones (2009). His visual art includes 77 Million Paintings, a generative art installation first exhibited in 2006.

Rolling Stone's 2023 list of the 500 greatest albums includes two Eno albums, plus albums he created with Roxy Music, Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads and U2. In 2019, Eno was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music. He is an activist on behalf of humanitarian, environmental, anti-war and pro-Palestinian causes and is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation.