It's New to Me: Wrong Way Up by Brian Eno & John Cale

Detail from a movie poster for Black Box Affair, 1966

I have several sizable blind spots in my music knowledge (hello, hip-hop!) - for every obvious one, though, there's one that doesn't make any sense at all. For instance, I have a predisposition to avoid albums that were released by older artists in the early '90s, when I was in junior high. At the time, I was reading Rolling Stone religiously, and I'd scoff at records like Ride the Wild Tom-Tom or Television's self-titled reunion records - I'd think, "Those records are for old people." I need to go back and give a lot of those albums a chance - Wrong Way Up was one of them, released in 1990 by veteran pop experimentalists Brian Eno and John Cale. It took a little effort to talk myself into buying it, but now I can't stop listening to it.

By 1990, I don't know if anyone expected a straightforward pop album from either Eno or Cale again. Each had worked with great bands and then had a string of amazing solo albums before turning to more esoteric pursuits. Eno had no evident interest in repeating Taking Tiger Mountain or Another Green World - by the late '70s, he was making albums with "Ambient" in the title. Cale had spent the '80s dabbling in post-punk, noise, and synth-pop, but hadn't attempted to record another pure pop album like Paris 1919. But the two of them collaborating on a full album of pop songs in 1990 appears to have been very rewarding for both of them and for listeners. The writing is consistently strong and the songs are amazingly arranged and played, with Eno and Cale's voices blending impressively on most tracks.

Cale plays more of a supporting role on Wrong Way Up, supplying the album's "mood" pieces, like the stark "In the Backroom" and the ballad "Cordoba", while Eno's tracks are the ones that really make the album soar. Eno's "Spinning Away" is the clear centerpiece of the album, a swirling, spacey pop number that is as good as anything he's recorded before or since - the ultimate testament to the song's quality is that a cover of "Spinning Away" on the soundtrack of the movie The Beach is also excellent, in spite of the fact that it was recorded by Sugar Ray (yes, THAT Sugar Ray). My favorite track on the record, though, may be the opening "Lay My Love" - it's a meticulously arranged pop song that starts with a simple violin figure and builds up to a beautiful chorus, with Eno singing, "I will lay my love around...you."

Unlike anything in either of their individual discographies, Wrong Way Up is the best kind of one-off collaboration and is now easily among my favorite releases by either of these songwriters.

"Lay My Love" by Brian Eno & John Cale