Description

Celtic vocalist Enya first gained notoriety as a member of the group Clannad in the 1980s, but became a superstar as a solo artist by fusing traditional music from the British Isles with dreamy new-age textures. Enya is a true crossover artist: her music is catchy enough to appeal to mainstream pop audiences, yet possessed of an ethereal quality that appeals to fans of the Cocteau Twins and Muzak alike. Her career received an added boost in the United States when her song "Orinico Flow (Sail Away)" was featured in a popular Volkswagen television commercial.

Biography

b. Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, 17 May 1961, Dore, Gweedore, Co. Donegal, Eire. Enya, a classically trained pianist, was formerly a member of Clannad before embarking on a solo career that blossomed unexpectedly with her 1988 UK chart-topper, "Orinoco Flow". Daughter of noted Irish Showband leader Leo Brennan (Brennan is the non-Gaelic form of Bhraonáin) who led the Slieve Foy Band, Enya was born into a highly musical family. Her mother was also a musician, and in 1968 two of her brothers and two of her uncles formed the band An Clann As Dobhar (Gaelic for a family from the townland of Dore). The name was soon shortened to Clannad and another family member, harpist/vocalist Máire Brennan, added to the line-up. Enya joined the band on keyboards in 1980 and shared in some of their success as they recorded haunting themes for a variety of television programmes, giving them their first chart success. However, Enya, who has professed she has little time for conventional pop music, never quite fitted into the band and left amicably in 1982. Her first recordings appeared on the score to David Puttnam's 1985 feature, The Frog Prince. The following year Enya recorded the music for the BBC Television series The Celts, which was subsequently released as her debut album in 1987. An endearing blend of ethereal singing (in Gaelic and English) and lush synthesisers, the album was largely ignored, as was the accompanying single, "I Want Tomorrow". However, the following year, Enya signed to WEA Records and released Watermark. Climbing to number 5 in the UK charts, the album also generated a surprise number 1 with the hypnotic single "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)". Working with her long-time collaborators, Roma Ryan (her lyric writer) and Nicky Ryan (her producer), Enya followed the chart-topper with two smaller hits - "Evening Falls" and "Storms In Africa Part II". The album also enjoyed a long chart run in America, eventually attaining multi-platinum status and establishing Enya as a fixture on the New Age album chart.
Enya adopted a lower profile for the next couple of years except for an appearance with Sinéad O'Connor. She returned in 1991 with the UK chart-topper Shepherd Moons, which by the mid-90s had attained world sales of 10 million copies. The album was hugely successful in America, and in 1993 won the Grammy for Best New Age Album. Her third collection, The Memory Of Trees, didn't alter the winning formula, but at some stage her warm, ambient music will begin to pale as listeners realize it is the same delicious cake with a different topping. The artist spent the remainder of the decade contributing soundtrack material to various projects, before returning to the studio to record A Day Without Rain. The album shot up the US and several European charts almost a year after its release, thanks to the use of the track "Only Time" in news coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
DISCOGRAPHY: Enya aka The Celts (BBC 1987)**, Watermark (WEA/Geffen 1988)****, Shepherd Moons (WEA/Reprise 1991)***, The Memory Of Trees (WEA/Reprise 1995)***, A Day Without Rain (WEA/Reprise 2000)***.
COMPILATIONS: Paint The Sky With Stars: The Best Of Enya (WEA/Reprise 1997)****, A Box Of Dreams 3-CD box-set (WEA 1997)***, Only Time: The Collection 4-CD box set (WEA 2002)***.
VIDEOGRAPHY: Moonshadows (Warner Music Vision 1991), The Video Collection (Warner Music Vision 2001).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Enya: A Beginning Discography, Matt Hargreaves.

Encyclopedia of Popular Music
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