It's Brian Eno's birthday today!
Eno got his start playing synth in Roxy Music, but is best known for being a music producer. He co-produced several U2 records along with Daniel Lanois, and he's worked with major players like David Bowie, Robert Fripp, David Byrne, Depeche Mode, and most recently, Coldplay. Eno has also enjoyed a successful solo career, with his main focus on the ambient genre. Celebrate Eno's birthday with some video from his amazing career.
The documentary More Than This: The Roxy Music Story is an in depth look back on Roxy Music's history. A good portion of the film focuses on the power struggle in the band between Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, leading to Eno's eventual exit.
"Third Uncle" (from Eno's 1974 album Taking Tiger Mountain)
FYI, Bauhaus does an amazing cover of "Third Uncle" if you're interested
Eno has released several ambient records, including his 1985 album Thursday Afternoon. The album is just one track (one hourlong track) and the video that accompanies it is a collection of seven video paintings designed to be viewed in the vertical format (thus, the viewer would need to turn the television screen onto its side). In the '90s the DVD version of Thursday Afternoon was released and provided two sets of videos (one in landscape, one in portrait format, 14 videos total) so viewers no longer need to manipulate their screens. To get an idea of the video paintings take a look at the full video for "Thursday Afternoon" here.
In 2011 the Royal Museum for Central Africa named a spider after Eno. I attempted to find a picture of the elusive Pseduocorinna brianeno, but alas, all I could pull up was a reference to prove it exists.
"Spider and I" (1977)
MGMT "Brian Eno"(studio version released on MGMT's 2010 cd Congratulations)