The sound of failure

Eno sought to create music that could be interrupted at any time (for flight announcements and such) without in any way harming the music. Also, since the music would probably be talked over, none of the instruments or frequencies matched the sound of the average human voice so there would be no need to compete for sonic space. He also noticed that... See more

“I always say ‘beginnings are easy, endings are hard’. Beginnings get easier and easier [because] there's so much technological assistance [and] so many ways of getting something started like rhythm machines and chord pattern makers.

There are a lot of ways of getting something pretty respectable going quite early on. To quote Picasso, ‘there's noth... See more

Increasingly, the work that stand out will be more raw and incomplete (because — by definition — new ideas haven’t been optimized because…they are new).

Eno explains:

"[On one end, you have] auto-tune that perfectly puts music into tune…which is sort of flawless and faultless. [In contrast, the other side] is clumsy, awkward, crude and unfinished thi... See more

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit – all these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided.

It’s the sound of failure: so much of modern art is the sound of things going out of contr

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