en garde

Eno falls off the fence he’s teetered dangerously on for years – messing about with James and U2, scaring us all half to death. Well now he’s done it! He’s fallen hard, and landed on his unprotected-by-the-padding-of-hair head. Working with Paul Simon, the composer of “Feelin’ Groovy”, and the unforgettable album “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon”. What a peculiar pairing. But I get it – Eno gets money, Paul Simon gets to wear Eno’s artistic credibility and maybe cops a few modern sounding songs from Eno. It’s such an unnatural but transparent arranged marriage that its vulgar and almost sickening, but funny. Its so obvious and pathetic its funny.

What makes this even funnier is that perhaps there's a real kernel of possibility here. Other 'Serious' ambient and electronic musicians can follow Eno's vapor trail and cross over to where the money is and go a-slumming for cash. Its kind of a win/win relationship for the 'artists'. Trading cash in exchange for the borrow of their air of high cool. Popsters can buy access to cutting edge musicians and their cred to get back into the bigtime.

Although, as we've seen, its a lose/lose proposition for the audience - we lose our art star's credibility and can never take them seriously again, AND we get more pop personality drivel which is never in short supply anyway, like most effluvium of industries of all kinds.

However, to be kind, we should remember that pop music personalities need all the help they can get. Like racehorses that lose a step and are out to pasture early in life, they're rather sad and inspire pity when trotting their feeble 3-legged songs around the ring and yelling too loudly about their quality. The more they insist, the more we notice the missing leg. Who can't shed a tear for the heroic has-been troubador who still pretends to have "fight" left in them? After they've used up the 5 or 6 melodies they found in their twenties, and the trends they were part of are all commodified, standardized, and quaintified, and way, way over with, they still need the crutches of some decent songs and knacky musicians around them to prop them up on the downward ramp of their careers. This need is probably driven by extreme fear - you can smell it! Fear of being nobody again in some cases but I think in most cases, its gotta be those pesky bills. Especially the taxes on those houses. A good example is Paul Simon. Even though everyone at the IRS (Infernal Revenue Service) loves the song "Feelin' Groovy", they are still charged to collect Paul Simon's taxes. And they will. With a vengeance only an agency with no public oversight can wield.

Our musical starling Paul Simon has shown over the years to be extremely willing to wear other music's platform shoes to get the attention he thinks he deserves (and maybe acquire some cash?). If his renewed glory reflects upon anyone else (but not too much - like those African musicians he used – uh, what were their names, again?), so much the better. But Paul Simon's dilemma is not unique. There are many other needy pop personalities out there. Perhaps Coldplay needs to try this hairshirted concept on too, so early in their "career" and that's why they want to show Eno their privates.

The possibilities are exciting: Madonna can buy the monolithic Monolake to hide her lack of talent behind while making the most of her other behind, Geir Jenssen can go to work for Justin Timberlake icing him down, John Mayer can chain Funckstorung up in his four car garage, Four Tet cozies Janet Jackson and acquires his own trick wardrobe, Billy Joel can pull himself out of the tarpit and pull Stars of the Lid his lap for a joyride, etc.

Call it what you will - pure sh!t, or inspired genius, or efficient product generation, it may be an idea whose time has come and perhaps we all should submit to it. Eno is not the first to do this kind of thing, nor the last. Eno's defenestration, like Iggy Pop's is just particularly obvious and ugly like a big red boil in the middle of your forehead on a Saturday night.