Here Come the Warm Jets

Here Come the Warm Jets is the debut solo album by Brian Eno, credited only as "Eno", released on Island Records in January 1974. It was recorded and produced by Eno following his departure from the band Roxy Music, and blends glam and pop stylings with avant-garde approaches. The album features various guest musicians, including members of Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Matching Mole and Pink Fairies, as well as Chris Spedding, and Robert Fripp of King Crimson. In developing lyrics and music, Eno used unusual methods and instructions to obtain unexpected results.[6]

Here Come the Warm Jets
Studio album by
Eno
ReleasedJanuary 1974 (January 1974)
RecordedSeptember 1973
StudioMajestic, London
Genre
Length42:01
LabelIsland
ProducerEno
Eno chronology
(No Pussyfooting)
(1973)		 Here Come the Warm Jets
(1974)		 Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
(1974)

Here Come the Warm Jets peaked at number 26 on the United Kingdom album charts and number 151 on the US Billboard charts, receiving mostly positive reviews. It was re-issued on compact disc in 1990 on Island Records and remastered in 2004 on Virgin Records, and continued to elicit praise.

Production

Here Come the Warm Jets was recorded in twelve days at Majestic Studios in London during September 1973 by recording engineer Derek Chandler.[6][7] It was mixed at Air and Olympic Studios by Eno and audio engineer Chris Thomas.[7] The album's title was believed to be a slang term for urination.[8] In an interview with Mojo magazine in 1996, Eno said that it came from a description he wrote for the treated guitar on the title track; he called it "warm jet guitar ... because the guitar sounded like a tuned jet."[9][10]

Eno enlisted sixteen guest musicians to play on the album with him, including John Wetton and Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Simon King from Hawkwind, Bill MacCormick of Matching Mole, Paul Rudolph of Pink Fairies, Chris Spedding and all the members of Roxy Music except vocalist Bryan Ferry. Eno selected them on the basis that he thought they were incompatible with each other musically.[6] He stated that he "got them together merely because I wanted to see what happens when you combine different identities like that and allow them to compete ... [The situation] is organized with the knowledge that there might be accidents, accidents which will be more interesting than what I had intended".[6]

Eno directed the musicians by using body language and dancing, as well as through verbal suggestion, to influence their playing and the sounds they would emit. He felt at the time that this was a good way to communicate with musicians.[11] The album credits Eno with instruments such as "snake guitar", "simplistic piano" and "electric larynx". These terms were used to describe the sound's character or the means of production used to treat the instruments.[6] After recording the individual tracks, Eno condensed and mixed the instrumentation deeply, resulting in some of the tracks bearing little resemblance to what the musicians recorded during the session.[11]

Eno's girlfriend at the time, potter Carol McNicoll, supervised the design of the cover for the album, which features one of her teapots.[12] It also has a picture of a woman urinating outdoors on the back of what appears to be a "naughty" playing card.

Music and lyrics

The songs on Here Come the Warm Jets reference various musical styles from the past and present. The overall style of the album has been described as "glammed-up art-pop", showcasing glam rock's simple yet theatrical crunchy guitar rock and art pop's sonic texture and avant-garde influences.[1] The album has been also described as art rock.[13][14] In some tracks, Eno's vocals emulate the manner of the lead singer of his former band Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry.[6] On other songs such as "Baby's on Fire", they were described as "more nasal and slightly snotty vocals".[15][16] Musically, the album borrows from popular styles of the music in the 1950s such as the tinkling pianos and falsetto backing vocals on "Cindy Tells Me", and the drum rhythm of "Blank Frank", taken from Bo Diddley's song "Who Do You Love?".[6]

To create the lyrics, Eno would later play these backing tracks singing nonsense syllables to himself, then take them and form them into actual words, phrases and meaning.[11] This lyric-writing method was used for all his more vocal-based recordings of the 1970s.[17] The lyrics on Here Come the Warm Jets are macabre with an underlying sense of humour.[18][19] They are mostly free-associative and have no particular meaning. Exceptions include "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch", about the historical A.W. Underwood of Paw Paw, Michigan with the purported ability to set items ablaze with his breath; according to Eno, the song "celebrates the possibility of a love affair with the man."[20] Eno has attempted to dissuade fans from reading too much into his words; he claims that the song "Needles in the Camel's Eye" was "written in less time than it takes to sing ... I regard [the song] as an instrumental with singing on it".[21]

Release
Eno on AVRO's television program TopPop, April 1974.

Here Come the Warm Jets was released in January 1974.[22] The album was one of Brian Eno's best-selling releases, charting for two weeks and peaking at number 26 on the UK Albums Chart on 9 March 1974,[23] and number 151 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart.[18] Eno planned a tour with the band The Winkies to accompany him following the release of Here Come the Warm Jets.[22] Eno had to depart the tour after being diagnosed with a collapsed lung.[22] After recovering, Eno played at an Island Records 1 June 1974 concert with fellow musicians Nico, Kevin Ayers and John Cale.[22]

Here Come the Warm Jets was later re-issued on Polydor in March 1977, and again on compact disc in January 1987.[22] In 2004, Virgin Records began reissuing Eno's albums in batches of four to five.[24] The remastered digipak release of Here Come the Warm Jets was released on 31 May 2004 in the UK and on 1 June 2004 in North America.[25]

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[18]
Blender[26]
Christgau's Record GuideA[27]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[28]
Mojo[29]
Pitchfork9.5/10[30]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[31]
Select5/5[32]
Spin Alternative Record Guide9/10[33]
Uncut[34]

Initial critical reception for the album was mostly positive, with praise focused on its experimental tendencies.[11] Critic Lester Bangs of Creem declared it "incredible,"[11] and noted that "the predominant feel is a strange mating of edgy dread with wild first-time-out exuberance."[35] Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave it an "A" rating, stating that "The idea of this record—top of the pops from quasi-dadaist British synth wizard—may put you off, but the actuality is quite engaging in a vaguely Velvet Underground kind of way."[27] Billboard wrote a positive review, stating that "... while it all may be a bit unpredictable, and may be a longshot to do much in the U.S. market, it is an excellent LP."[36] The album was also placed in Circus magazine's section for "Picks of the Month".[11] Cynthia Dagnal of Rolling Stone wrote an article on Eno, calling the album "a very compelling experiment in controlled chaos and by his own self-dictated standards a near success."[11][37] The next month, Gordon Fletcher wrote a negative review for the album in the "Records" section of Rolling Stone, stating "[Eno's] record is annoying because it doesn't do anything ... the listener must kick himself for blowing five bucks on baloney."[38][37] In 1974, Here Come the Warm Jets was voted one of the best albums of the year in the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll for that year.[39]

Later assessments of the album have been positive; critic Steve Huey of AllMusic stated that the album "still sounds exciting, forward-looking, and densely detailed, revealing more intricacies with every play".[18] In 1991, Select gave the album a five out of five rating, describing it as an album of "mind-blowing diversity" and as a "classic album".[32] In 2012, the album charted at number 432 in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums ever.[40] In a retrospective review, Rolling Stone's J. D. Considine gave the album four out of five stars and commented that "It may be easy to hear both an anticipation of punk and an echo of Roxy Music in the arch clangor of Here Come the Warm Jets, but what shines brightest is the offhand accessibility of the songs", adding that "the melodies linger on ... the album seems almost a blueprint for the pop experiments Bowie (with Eno collaborating) would conduct with Low".[31] In 2004, Pitchfork ranked the album at number 24 on its "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s" list,[41] as well as giving the re-issue of the album 9.5 out of 10.[30] In 2003, Blender placed the album on their list "500 CDs You Must Own: Alternative Rock", stating that Here Come the Warm Jets "remains his best pop effort. His experimental touch turns basic glam-rock into something sick and sinister. The free-associating, posh-voiced vocals are an acquired taste, but there's method in this madness".[42] The Canadian music magazine Exclaim! referred to Here Come the Warm Jets as "Arguably one of the greatest solo debuts of the 1970s ... Songs such as "Baby's on Fire", "Driving Me Backwards" and "Needles in the Camel's Eye" capture the lush and sleazy underpinning narratives of the British Invasion in arrangements that sound quintessentially timeless".[43] In 2012, Treble named the album in the list "10 Essential Glam Rock Albums."[44]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Brian Eno, except where noted.

Side A
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Needles in the Camel's Eye"Eno, Phil Manzanera3:11
2."The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" 3:04
3."Baby's on Fire" 5:19
4."Cindy Tells Me"Eno, Manzanera3:25
5."Driving Me Backwards" 5:12
Side B
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."On Some Faraway Beach" 4:36
2."Blank Frank"Eno, Robert Fripp3:37
3."Dead Finks Don't Talk"Eno; arranged by Paul Thompson, Busta Jones, Nick Judd, Eno4:19
4."Some of Them Are Old" 5:11
5."Here Come the Warm Jets" 4:04

Personnel

Charts
Year Chart Peak Position Ref.
1974 UK Albums Chart 26 [23]
1974 Billboard Pop Albums 151 [18]
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See also

References
  1. Buckley 2003, p. 344.
  2. "500 CDs You Must Own: Alternative Rock – Blender". Blender. 15 March 2003. Archived from the original on 19 April 2009. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  3. Ankeny, Jason. "Brian Eno | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  4. Gehr, Richard (16 May 2011). "Six Degrees of Brian Eno's Another Green World". eMusic. Archived from the original on 6 July 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  5. O'Brien, Glenn (22 November 2016). "New Again: Brian Eno". Interview Magazine.
  6. Tamm 1995, p. 99.
  7. Here Come the Warm Jets (Liner notes). Island Records. 1974.
  8. Tamm 1995, p. 98.
  9. Gill, Andy (June 1998). "[Brian Eno interview]". Mojo. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  10. Thompson, Dave. "Here Come the Warm Jets – Brian Eno | Listen, Appearances, Song Review | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  11. Tamm 1995, p. 100.
  12. Dayal, Geeta (5 October 2009). "The Album Covers of Brian Eno". Print. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  13. Ankeny, Jason. "Brian Eno | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  14. Rogers, Jude (25 January 2017). "Brian Eno – 10 of the best". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  15. Huey, Steve. "Baby's on Fire – Brian Eno | Listen, Appearances, Song Review | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  16. Howard 2004, p. 191.
  17. Tamm 1995, p. 81.
  18. Huey, Steve. "Here Come the Warm Jets – Brian Eno". AllMusic. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  19. Tamm 1995, p. 112.
  20. Eno, Brian; Mills, Russell (1986). More Dark Than Shark. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-13883-7.
  21. Tamm 1995, p. 113.
  22. Strong 1998, p. 244.
  23. Warwick 2004, p. 379.
  24. "NME News The Musical Life of Brian! | nme.com". NME. 5 March 2004. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  25. Davidson, John (28 July 2004). "Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets [Reissue] | PopMatters". PopMatters. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  26. Wolk, Douglas (2004). "Brian Eno: (various reissues)". Blender. Archived from the original on 6 August 2004. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  27. Christgau, Robert (1981). "Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the '70s. Ticknor and Fields. ISBN 0-89919-026-X. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  28. Brunner, Rob (4 June 2004). "Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy), Another Green World, Before and After Science". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  29. Buckley, David (June 2004). "Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets / Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) / Another Green World / Before and After Science". Mojo (127): 123.
  30. Wolk, Douglas (3 August 2017). "Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets / Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) / Before and After Science". Pitchfork. Retrieved 3 August 2017.
  31. Considine, J. D. (2004). "Brian Eno". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 278–279. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
  32. Cavanagh, David (July 1991). "Reviews: Re-Issues". Select (13): 84.
  33. Weisbard & Marks 1995, p. 128.
  34. Troussé, Stephen (June 2004). "Egghead Over Heels". Uncut (85): 102.
  35. Bangs, Lester. "A sandbox in Alphaville". Perfect Sound Forever. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  36. "Top Album Picks". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 86 (30): 60. 27 July 1974. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
  37. Tamm 1995, p. 101.
  38. Fletcher, Gordon (24 October 1974). "[Here Come the Warm Jets review]". Rolling Stone. Wenner Media. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  39. "Robert Christgau: Pazz & Jop 1974: Critics Poll". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  40. "500 Greatest Albums of All Time Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest albums of all time". Rolling Stone. 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  41. "Staff Lists: Top 100 Albums of the 1970s | Features | Pitchfork". Pitchfork. 23 June 2004. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  42. "500 CDs You Must Own: Alternative Rock – Blender". Blender. 15 March 2003. Archived from the original on 19 April 2009. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  43. Nasrallah, Dimitri (July 2005). "Brian Eno: Sweet Science". Exclaim!. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  44. Terich, Jeff; Karman, Chris (6 June 2012). "10 Essential Glam Rock Albums". Treblezine. Retrieved 8 July 2019.

Sources
  • Buckley, Peter; Buckley, Jonathan (2003). The Rough Guide to Rock. Rough Guides. ISBN 1-84353-105-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). "Brian Eno". Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Howard, David N. (2004). Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings. Hal Leonard. ISBN 0-634-05560-7.
  • Tamm, Eric (1995). Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80649-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Warwick, Neil; Kutner, Jon; Brown, Tony (2004). The Complete Book of the British Charts: Singles and Albums. Omnibus Press. ISBN 1-84449-058-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Strong, M. C. (1998). The Great Rock Discography. Giunti. ISBN 88-09-21522-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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