Style
Jim DeRogatis, author of Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock, described the overall sound of Before and After Science as "the coldest and most clinical of Eno's pop efforts" while David Ross Smith of online music database Allmusic wrote that "Despite the album's pop format, the sound is unique and strays far from the mainstream". The album's opening tracks "No One Receiving" and "Backwater" start the album as upbeat and bouncy songs. Rock critic Lester Bangs described the song "King's Lead Hat" as a track that emphasizes "Eno's affinities with New Wave in its rushed mechanical rhythms". The song's title is an anagram of Talking Heads, a New Wave group. Eno had met the group after a concert in England when Talking Heads were touring with Ramones. Eno would later produce Talking Heads' second album More Songs About Buildings and Food. The last five songs of the album have been described as having "an occasional pastoral quality" and being "pensive and atmospheric".
Opposed to Another Green World's music which Eno described as "sky music", Eno referred to the music of Before and After Science as "ocean music". References to water in the lyrics appear in songs such as "Backwater", "Julie With..." and "By this River". Author Simon Reynolds noted themes of "boredom" and "bliss" through the album, citing "Here He Comes", about "a boy trying to vanish by floating through the sky through a different time" and "Spider and I", about a boy watching the sky and dreaming about being carried away with a ship, as examples. Eno's songwriting style was described as "a sound-over-sense approach". Influenced by poet Kurt Schwitters, Eno consciously did not make songwriting or lyrics the main focus in the music. Tom Carson of Rolling Stone noted this style, stating that the lyrics are "only complementary variables" to the music on the album. Lester Bangs commented on Eno's lyrical style on "Julie with..." stating that the lyrics themes "could be a murderer's ruminations, or simply a lovers' retreat... or Julie could be three years old". Schwitters' influence is also shown on the song "Kurt's Rejoinder," on which samples of Schwitters' poem "Ursonate" can be heard.
Read more about this topic: Before And After Science
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