Brian Eno’s restless creative adventures with Roxy, Bowie, U2 and Talking Heads

Brian Eno’s restless creative adventures with Roxy, Bowie, U2 and Talking Heads

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold May 15, 2026 Duration: 30:59

For nearly 60 years, Brian Eno has been a “proud non-musician” who changed the way people thought and sounded while inventing whole new ways of recording. We loved reading the updated edition of ‘On Some Faraway Beach’ which examines his staggering catalogue of avant garde experiment and wonders if there’s anyone remotely like him. Author David Sheppard looks back with us here at …

 

… a life of great good fortune: “luck is being ready”

 

… the rivalry with Bryan Ferry sparked by his getting more attention … and girls

 

... where you can hear the effect on his Oblique Strategy cards on the Bowie recordings

 

... the ingenious way he made U2 make up their minds

 

… his first experience of immersive sound via the organ his granddad built in the family home

 

… why Wire’s Colin Newman calling him “a Class A Bullshitter” was a compliment

 

… Bono: “We didn’t go to art school, we went to Brian Eno”

 

… was Coldplay “a Rubicon he should never have crossed?”

 

… the appeal of the sculptured sound of early ‘70s synths to someone who couldn’t play keyboards

 

… his greatest record, Another Green World, and the time he heard Music For Airports playing in an airport

 

Order copies of On Some Faraway Beach here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Some-Faraway-Beach-Times-Brian/dp/1399605712/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0


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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Word In Your Ear
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