QuoteProject
People do dismiss ambient music, don't they? They call it 'easy listening,' as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.
Brian Eno
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Ambient music is often underestimated and regarded as simplistic, despite its depth.

In this quote, Brian Eno highlights how ambient music is frequently dismissed as mere 'easy listening.' This perspective underestimates the complexity and emotional depth of the genre, implying that music must always be challenging to engage with, rather than appreciating the subtleties and the experiences it can evoke.

Themes

Ambient MusicEasy ListeningDismissalAppreciationComplexity

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote in a music discussion to challenge stereotypes about certain genres.

More from Brian Eno

We are increasingly likely to find ourselves in places with background music. No composers have thought to write for these modern spaces, which represent 30% of our musical experience.
Brian EnoRead
I think that technology is always invented for historical reasons, to solve a historical problem. But they very soon reveal themselves to be capable of doing things that aren't historical that nobody had ever thought of doing before.
Brian EnoRead
When I first started making ambient music, I was setting up systems using synthesizers that generated pulses more or less randomly. The end result is a kind of music that continuously changes. Of course, until computers came along, all I could actually present of that work was a piece of its output.
Brian EnoRead
In the future, you won't buy artists' works; you'll buy software that makes original pieces of 'their' works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.
Brian EnoRead
Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.
Brian EnoRead
The big message of gospel is that you don't have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.
Brian EnoRead

Similar quotes

When I was a teenager, my biggest lessons came from Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. I learned so much from opening up for those artists, and it also taught me how to treat your opening acts and make them feel like they're part of a family, not just a tour.
Taylor SwiftRead
If you feel that you're not getting enough out of a song, change the instrument - go from an acoustic to an electric or vice versa, or try an open tuning. Do something to shake it up.
Mark KnopflerRead
'Society's Child' was a real hard record to start with. That's all you want is for you to put your first record out and have people screaming at you in the streets. But it taught me right away that what I was doing was valuable and important.
Janis IanRead
With pop music and pop musicians, you know everything about everyone all the time, particularly their physical appearance. With female musicians, that's made a big thing of, and I think people, certainly with me, have appreciated a bit of mystery.
LordeRead
To this day, if I ever meet grownups who play ukulele, I love 'em.
Paul MccartneyRead
When you hear the music ringin' in your soul_x000D_ And you feel it in your heart and it grows and grows_x000D_ And it comes from the backstreet rock & roll and the healing has begun...
Van MorrisonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Brian Eno | QuoteProject