Wrong Way Up - Brian Eno & John Cale (1990)

Some people just make things look easy. Eno, with all of his huge ideas about ambient music and Cale, the heart of the Velvet Underground who went on to do even bigger things, were already giants in the music world. And it seems from listening to this that someone said “hey you guys should make a pop record” and they just shrugged and said “oh, you mean like this?” and dashed off this perfect little gem.

The two seem to play most of the instruments themselves. They build a little world where it doesn’t really matter what other artists are doing. This is a slab of perfect pop music, frozen in time.

Tracks I Liked:

One Word - I didn’t find much on songwriting credits, but I assume the one who sings it is the one who mostly wrote it. This one seems to feature both of them singing, and is more of melding of their styles in a lot of ways.

In The Backroom - All Cale, all the time. Elegant, literate, and a little creepy.

Empty Frame - A fun, Beatles-y little romp