Brian Eno: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)

I got this album back in 1995.  I knew the song “Third Uncle” from Bauhaus covering it & then the Eno version appeared on a history of industrial music compilation & of course I was familiar with Eno’s ambient work & acting as a producer on a ton of albums I liked.  So I was pretty stoked by the idea of an album that sounded like “Third Uncle.”  & that’s not at all what this album is.   I listened to this once & filed it away as more or less sucking.
In 2002 I stumbled across an interview with Eno & became a big fan of him as someone talking about music & read a few of his books & Jessica Bailiff gave me a copy of Another Green World & I really love that album (which is the album after Taking Tiger Mountain), but still didn’t bother to give this album another chance.  So I finally re-listened to this & I still think this is pretty awful.  It’s basically quirky & witty 1960s pop in the style of Herman’s Hermits, The Beatles, & Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd which for me is not a great thing.  It also reminds me of some of the hometaper pop music of the 1990s (the thing that makes that genre work for me is the fact that I’ll probably only listen to the tape once).  I don’t know why I don’t like most of the songs on here while I really like Another Green World as they really are stylistically similar, but I know that I don’t.  For me, make sure you’ve heard “Third Uncle” & after that move on from this album.