Music Arcades: Brian Eno and Jah Wobble: Spinner

I'm probably reading way too much into this, but there's something about the official story of this album's provenance that doesn't quite stack up. You can read that story on the Wikipedia page, which is based on interviews and Eno's own sleeve notes. In brief it is that Eno made some pieces to accompany a Derek Jarman film, didn't feel they worked on their own, so handed them over to Wobble to do with them whatever he wanted. In a completely asymmetric collaboration, Wobble tampered to varying degrees, from not at all to a very great deal, and Eno put out the results, without further intervention, on his record label (or his brother-in-law's record label, which is surely the same thing).

I must re-read A Year sometime. I'd love to see what 15 years' perspective has added to what Eno says in the book, and to my memories of that time. But until I do, I won't be sure whether it was there that I read that Brian Eno actually didn't much like the way this album turned out (the book may have Swollen Appendices, but has a tiny, non-existent in fact, Index). I don't think I'm imagining that I read it somewhere. And if that's right, then I'm wondering, why substitute one version you don't like for another you don't like? Particularly since the objection to releasing the original is hard to follow: "I made most of the music in my studio… alone at night. I hardly watched the film…," say the sleeve notes, followed by the apparent non sequitur, "I had intended to collect the music as a soundtrack record, but a lot of it didn't make much sense without the film." These are the conundrums that occur to the fan while listening with brain in neutral: how can it not make sense without the film if it was made while hardly watching the film?

I expect there's a very simple explanation. Maybe involving simple suspension of judgement to see what the audience would make of it, whether Wobble's name and vibe would open up new audiences. My hunch is not, but the old audience — the one that runs according to IF Eno AND NOT (Coldplay OR Paul Simon OR Bono) THEN Buy — thought it was kind of OK.