Both Brian Eno and John Cale have always flirted with conventional pop music throughout their careers, while reserving the right to go off on less accessible experiments, which means they've always held out the promise that they would make something as attractive as this synthesizer-dominated collection, on which Eno comes as close to the mainstream as he has since Another Green World and Cale is as catchy as he's been since Honi Soit. The result is one of the best albums either one has ever made. [A 2005 reissue added two bonus tracks: "Grandfather's House" and "You Don't Miss Your Water."]
Recording Date 1973 - 1992. This box set is a deluxe masterpiece in its creation. It starts off as a box that has a box within it that slides out the open side and inside the middle box there are the 3 cds and a booklet. The discs are a complete overview of Brian Enos' vocal music. The first disc contains the first 2 solo albums he made. It is refreshing to have them both together vurtually untouched(i say vurtually because I dont even know what they omitted to fit them on together). The second disc contains the bulk of Another Green World and Before and After Science. Both Classics in my book. The last disc is the treasure for most people probably have the first 4 albums. The first discs only throw hints of having rare tracks with only a couple per cd. The 3rd disc which has not only Enos projects for outside artists represented but it also contains the unfinshed album of pop songs called My Squelchy Life. As far as i can tell he hasnt made anything like those early vocal albums since he worked on this album back in 91. Consequently the disc is very valuable and with the deluxe packaging of the box it makes a terrific box set.
John Cale's reentry into the world of pop music is a contentious and accessible one. This is the Welsh iconoclast at his most elegant, energetic, and innovative. HoboSapiens finds Cale using samples as the base of all his tracks and using musicians to fill in his ideas – ideas that were firmly established melodically, lyrically, and texturally. There are a couple of dozen players here, including guitarists Joe Gore (Tom Waits, PJ Harvey) and Joel Mark, Eno (and his two daughters Darla and Irial), bassist Jeff Eyrich, a small choir of Italian voices, a choral quartet called A Tonal Choir, drummer Marco Giovino, and samples by a host of electro-wizards.
This September, Rhino are to release a new four-CD box set that shines a light on the collaborative work of Phil Collins. Plays Well With Others features an incredibly broad array of music from a diverse range of artists including Brian Eno, John Cale, Eric Clapton, Tears For Fears, Howard Jones, Paul McCartney, Adam Ant and more…. [superdeluxeedition.com]
Right from the start, Cale makes it clear he's not messing around on Fear. If his solo career before then had been a series of intriguing stylistic experiments, here he meshes it with an ear for his own brand of pop and rock, accessible while still clearly being himself through and through. Getting musical support from various Roxy Music veterans like Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, and Andy Mackay didn't hurt at all, and all the assorted performers do a great job carrying out Cale's vision.