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 Music
similar to Enya's moody pieces used to be listened to chiefly by
crystal-toting, incense-burning, yoga-loving New Age folks. But Enya
inadvertently brought such ethereal sounds into the mainstream, making
it a part of pop culture, as well as a part of cultures around the
globe.
Classically trained on the piano from the time she was a wee lass, Enya
(Eithne Ni Bhraonain) came from a large Irish family of musicians; when
she was 18, she joined several of her brothers, sisters and uncles in
the group Clannad. Three years later, she quit to work on her own
material, and ended up composing the music for a BBC television series
on the Irish. Her haunting melodies and heavenly sounds became her 1986
self-titled debut, but it wasn't until her follow-up, Watermark, that
Enya reached a mass market thanks to the single "Orinoco Flow," the
snappiest song amongst her sweeping and chanting sounds. Far from pop or
commercial, the album's 11 tracks ebbed and flowed like a score to a
foreign film rather than the soundtrack to a big studio movie. On 1991's
Shepherd Moons and 1995's The Memory Of Trees, Enya played all of the
instruments (there were a few guests on Watermark), sang the multiple
vocal parts and composed the music, and Clannad's former manager Nicky
Ryan served as producer and co-arranger. Written by Ryan's wife Roma,
the lyrics were in both English and Gaelic (Enya was raised in County
Donegal, one of Ireland's few Gaelic-speaking regions). While Watermark
went on to sell some eight million copies worldwide and stayed on World
Music charts for several years, Shepherd Moons achieved even more
attention, sold even more records (over nine million copies worldwide),
spent 199 consecutive weeks on the charts and earned Enya a Grammy. The
Memory Of Trees has continued the pattern, selling two million in the
U.S. alone.
Enya Links
Enya's
texturally-rich soundscapes are evocative and enchanting pleasures that
together create an adventurous and elaborate body of work that has done
remarkably well commercially. Although her creations are decidedly not
mainstream, she has become one of the biggest-selling female artists of
the '90s. Her music has also appeared in several films, including L.A.
Story, Green Card, Far And Away and The Age Of Innocence. |
