Conversation with Brian Eno & Ezra Klein

A thoughtful discussion on the importance of art

Ezra Klein gets a hard time from people lately, but this says more about them than him. Klein is consistently a smart thinker and one of the better personalities working in trad media. Most of us in the heterodox Substack space agree.

Do I think he’s right about everything? Of course not, but I don’t think anyone is right about everything. What I appreciate is he actually talks to people on all sides of the political spectrum, and although he definitely suffers from some degree of left-wing groupthink, he still says things he sees as true too, regardless of what that tribe might believe. Of course, many people hate that here, which I continue to find odd. The purity tests are honestly tiresome. My only piece of feedback for Ezra would be to push back against his liberal guests as much as he does conservative ones like Ben Shapiro — this would make for much better conversations. But I enjoy many of these regardless, and appreciate he is willing to speak to people he disagrees with. We badly need more of that, full stop.

Recently, Ezra interviewed one of the original innovators of ambient music and one of the fathers of electronic music, Brian Eno. Of course, as a music composer myself, I’m a big fan of his. Note, I’m certain I don’t agree with all Brian’s personal politics, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think he has important things to say. This is how healthy people process the world, they don’t simply ignore or block out those they disagree with.

Anyway, the conversation with Brian was wonderful, and not at all political, just focusing on the world of music. Check it out in full here, it’s worth the time (or embedded below).

Also on Spotify here or Apple here, if you prefer those instead of YouTube.

Bonus, if you’re new here and want to read some of my personal philosophy on the topic of modern music, try this post or this one as a starter.