On two quite different pieces--the closing title-track and "On Some Faraway Beach"--a different side of Eno was laid bare. These mid-tempo, mostly wordless sound-paintings construct melancholy scenes out of grandiose, manipulated sounds, and gesture toward Eno's role as the father of ambient music. Savage guitar lines, erratic synthesizer, and pounding drums (Robert Fripp, Paul Thompson, and Phil Manzanera are among the excellent personnel) provide exciting textures on a collection as beguiling as it is invigorating. With WARM JETS Eno proved he was ready to jump off the edge of the pop universe, and to drag everyone else with him.
By the time Brian Eno left Roxy Music and came to record this masterpiece of a debut in 1973, he already held in his grasp the raw tools to revolutionize popular music. HERE COME THE WARM JETS is bathed in his singular pop-with-a-wink aesthetic and free-associative imagination. Whether on the four-on-the-floor pre-punk stomp of "Needles In The Camel's Eye" or the Spector/VU trad-rock-ism of "Cindy Tells Me," the album displays an unabashed love of quirky, catchy pop. Macabre lyrics often subvert the melodies, a feature fully expressed on "Baby's On Fire," where the singer's cheeky vocals exaggerate the theme's comic ambiguity.
Personnel: Brian Eno (vocals, guitar, keyboards, synthesizer); Paul Rudolph (guitar, bass guitar); Chris Spedding, Phil Manzanera, Robert Fripp (guitar); Lloyd Watson (slide guitar); Andy Mackay (saxophone, keyboards); Nick Judd, Nick Kool & The Koolaids (keyboards); Chris Thomas , John Wetton, Bill MacCormick, Busta "Cherry" Jones (bass guitar); Marty Simon, Simon King, Paul Thomson (drums); Sweetfeed (background vocals).
Rolling Stone (p.92) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Eno, guitarist Robert Fripp and moonlighting members of Roxy Music reconstitute rock and pop into some bizarre third thing." Uncut (p.102) - 5 stars out of 5 - "[T]he first fractured flush of Eno's freedom from a Roxy he feared fatally compromised..." Magnet (p.91) - "WARM JETS orbits in the same glam-rock galaxy as Bowie's ZIGGY STARDUST..." Mojo (Publisher) (p.123) - 4 stars out of 5 - "Eno's debut really does sound like the future."
Precursor to future greatness
I find the opinion that this is one of his best releases to be waaaay off the mark.
Some like to lump this one in with "Tiger Mountain", however the high points of that record are in a different stratosphere of artistic majesty than the best moments found here.
"Dead Finks Don't Talk", "Driving Me Backwards", "Baby's on Fire" -- these 3 songs save this record from outright mediocrity. They stack up favorably with the lesser moments on "Tiger Mountain" and had Eno only released "1" album in 1973-1974 (removing the "filler" tracks found on the B-side of Tiger Mountain & replacing them with these 3), a composite of the two records would've approached the hallowed status of the masterpieces that followed ("Another Green World" & "Before & After Science"). As is, I would call this a middle-of-the-pack release for Eno and only a precursor to the greatness that immediately followed.
Submitted by Chris (Winnipeg, Canada) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo 2 of 3 found this helpful.
The first and best! Of Eno's vocal albums, this is my hands down favorite. A wild concoction mixing glam, art-rock, doo-wop, film scores and a whole mess of found noises into a brilliant stew.
When I first heard this on LP in 1979, it blew my mind. For the first 10-15 years of listening to it I tended to prefer side 1. I now find that the (now) second half of the CD is really where the pay-off lies.
A classic.
Submitted by Jack Smith (W-S, NC) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo
really interesting i found this piece of work really interesting for such efforts in sound experimentalism and strange lyrics .in these tracks you can recognize the sound that shaped the 80's new wave and new romantic.really good listening! Submitted by GAGAUMPA (LIVORNO) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo
Something For Everyone Brian Eno's work is an aquired taste. You really have to take the time to listen closely to what is being presented. "Here Come The Warm Jets" is Eno exposing himself as the consumate composer, musician and social observer. The album is populated with strange characters both describing their worlds, as in "Cindy Tells Me" or being described in the creepy "Blank Frank". In this album Eno tells stories about people and situations with an amazing variety of musical textures and moods. Sometimes the mood is a cynical take on fame and destruction as in the tale of "Baby's on Fire" and the lyric, "Look at her laughing/like heifer to the slaughter", yet he switches gears as rapidly and seemingly seamlessly to sentimental thoughts of love and remembrance as in "Some of them are Old". On the title cut, "Here Come the Warm Jets"(the last song on the album) synthesizers soar in a comfortable felt overlaying some odd bells. On "Some Faraway Beach" the entire tune is predicated on simple piano notes in a simple progression. One would be hard pressed to find musical exotica and eccentricities, talent and pure imagination in any other contemporay artist as you will find in Brian Eno's work. "Here Comes the Warm Jets" is second only to Eno's "Before and After Science" in bringing to the world the possibilities of music, technology, and observation of 20th century western civilization. Eno's first claim to fame was as Roxy Music's keyboard player. If one follows Eno's career after that, one will find a man who actually makes music an intimate part of the human whole, a multitalented engineer, musician and person for whom SOUND is his life. The way it is arranged, where it is and where it isn't is what makes it a part of life
Submitted by catdan5 (Austin, Texas) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo
Frippin' Fantastic When I heard Baby's On Fire for the first time in about thirty years I was absolutely stunned by just how sensational Robert Fripp's guitar work is! As a friend said "He's slipped himself..." Here Come The Warm Jets is very early 70's experimental stuff, but then that's what Eno was all about. Some of the tracks don't stand up too well after all this time, but hey if you like music, real music go and get this album! I'm going to put Baby's On Fire in my top 100 song's of all time. Submitted by grant.woodhams (Geraldton Western Australia) Was This Review Helpful? YesNo This review is for a different format.
Precursor to future greatness
The first and best!
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