David Byrne & Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today – 2008
My first exposure to this record was through the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Or Ridiculous things said by ridiculous people in a ridiculous movie). I found the song, “Home” pleasant enough but it reminds me of Beck’s “Lost Cause”. Both are lovely songs with needless sound effects to distract from the simplicity that they should bathe in. You want very much to like the song, but they are both so over thought that I, at least, find myself angry at them.
Also like Sea Change this is an album of songs. If one was expecting My Life in the Bush of (even more) Ghosts, this is not it. “MY Big Nurse and “One Fine Day” sound like the guitar written compositions they started out as. Something intended for campfire guitar. You expect to see people rocking back and forth under the stars and smiling at each other while canoodling under woven ponchos.
By the third track, “I Feel My Stuff”, I find myself totally comfortable with the beat boxes and samples and glicks and chirps. The songs have all been so inviting that the determined weirdness of the piano breaks amidst the shuffling grooves don’t bother me as much even as it morphs into a near cacophonic semi-rap. They wash over like soft waves at low tide and the rest is blithely hypnotic.
Marrying Gospel to Experimentalism might seem dicey, but on the title track it comes off as inspiring and saddening. It’s a real treat. On previous albums Byrne or Eno or both would just keep on in that direction. Once they grasp on to some motif they tend to not let go. Instead, they turn up the tempo a hair and get us back to the campfire with the horn backed “Life is Long”.
Sure, Byrne and Eno can’t resist some tribalism as on “Poor Boy”, but that’s a small price to pay for such an accessible collection.
Everything that Happens….is notable for how Eno and Byrne (Like Radiohead before them) completely embraced the internet and new delivery systems, creating flickr pages and websites that engage the fan, completely eschewing advertising and traditional deliveries. They should be applauded and heralded as leaders. The war for the new music delivery template will be fought on two fronts: Startup bands embracing Facebook and Twitter (Steel Train. fun. Etc) and granddaddies of music who can afford to take these risks. Eno, Byrne, Radiohead, these guys are self-sustaining and can afford to be mavericks and vanguards.
I only wish that people like Bruce Springsteen, who appeal to a broader demographic, would do the same thing. The day of the “label” is over. But music is thriving and as good as it ever was. Not “same”. Better.
Grade: A
ASide: Home, Strange Overtones
BlindSide: My Big Nurse, I Feel My Stuff
DownSide: The River
