The most ambient album in the world, I reckon, has got to be Ambient 1 (Music For Airports) By Brian Eno, and here’s my reasoning.
Firstly, here’s Brian himself, from the album sleeve:
“Over the past three years, I have become interested in the use of music as ambience…I have begun using the term ‘ambient music’. An ambience is defined as an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint. Ambient music is intended to induce calm and a space to think. Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular, it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”
So there you have it, argument number one – if it was Mr Eno himself that invented, and labeled, the term Ambient Music, then it stands to reason that it would most probably be him himself who’d produce the most ambient album in the world…ever, innit?
Yes, it does.
My other, much more convincing argument for this particular album, the first in the genre remember, to be dubbed The Most Ambient Album In The World, is based on the following true story.
A while back I was tuned into that Pandora website, wherein it generated customised music playlists based on my preferences for different bands and music. I was playing my Orb playlist; a nice mix of ambient-type stuff that I’ve found makes a good, unobtrusive background, useful when reading, or writing or just wanting to subtly drown out the noise of shrieking from next door’s TV.
On this occasion a song had been delicately playing away for about 10 minutes, chilling me out nicely, so I looked up to note what this particular interesting/ignorable track was, and saw that it was from Ambient 1 (Music For Airports) by Brian Eno – available, a helpful ad informed me, to buy now from Amazon.
Aye, sounds good that, I thought, I wonder how much Amazon is selling it for? The minimum amount of clicks later and my basket was once again empty, Ambient 1 (Music For Airports) by Brian Eno was collecting air miles, and a hefty carbon footprint in the process, as it winged its way across the sea from the States.
I was looking forward to its arrival until a couple of days later when, searching my CD collection for something suitably ignorable/interesting to play, I noticed that there, already in my fucken collection, was Ambient fucken 1 (Music For Fucken Airports) by Brian Fucken Eno!
I mean, how much more fucken ambient an album can you get? An album I’d listened to on a good few occasions already, and I end up buying it again cos I didn’t even recognize it when I heard it!
“Intended to induce calm” is it Brian? Not that night it didn’t; I was fucken livid. Seven fucken quid that cost me, for a fucken doubler.
Bastard.