Enya (album)

Enya is the debut studio album by Irish singer, songwriter, and musician Enya, released in March 1987 by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. It was renamed as The Celts for the 1992 international re-release of the album by WEA Records in Europe and by Reprise Records in the United States. The album is a selection of music she recorded for the soundtrack to the BBC television series "The Celts", aired in 1987. Four years into her largely unnoticed solo career, Enya landed her first major project in 1985 when producer Tony McAuley asked her to contribute a song to the soundtrack. After its director David Richardson liked her demo, Enya accepted his offer to compose the entire score with her longtime recording partners, producer and arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan.
"Enya" received mostly mixed reviews from critics when it was released in 1987. It was a mild commercial success, peaking at No. 8 in Ireland and No. 69 on the UK Albums Chart. The album continued to sell; it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of one million copies. Despite its commercial performance, the album helped Enya secure a recording contract with Warner after chairman Rob Dickins became a fan of its music. After the commercial success of Enya's next two albums, the album was reissued as "The Celts" and outperformed its original sales. It reached a new peak of No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart and sold a further one million copies in the United States. In 2009, "The Celts" was reissued in Japan with a bonus track.
Background and recording.
Following her work on the soundtrack to the romantic comedy film "The Frog Prince" (1984), Enya's first major project as a solo artist followed when, in 1985, she was invited by producer Tony McAuley to compose a track for his BBC television documentary series "The Celts". As a coincidence, Enya had recorded a track named "March of the Celts" before she was asked to be involved, and decided to submit it to the project. Initially, each episode of the series was to feature a different composer, but series director David Richardson liked Enya's track so much, he commissioned her to compose the entire score.
Enya worked with her usual recording partners, arranger and producer Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan. The album was recorded in two locations; at Aigle Studio, a 16-track studio installed in the Ryans' home, then located in Artane, a northern suburb of Dublin, and a sound studio at BBC Enterprises at Wood Lane, London. When they recorded at the BBC studio, Nicky had to teach the audio engineers how he and Enya worked as their unusual recording process confused them at first. Nicky said he told them "to forget everything [they had] learned and just bear with us for at least a week". One such example was Nicky's use of reverb, which he set to 24 seconds instead of the more common placement of one-and-a-half seconds.
A total of 72 minutes of music was recorded for the series. Roma recalled that Enya was given "various pastiches" that Richardson wished to incorporate into the episodes, which Enya then used as a guide for to write music to complement them. "Enya" includes 39 minutes of selected pieces from the soundtrack. The album's front cover depicts Enya posing with stuffed wolves.
Music and lyrics.
Several of the album's track titles are titled or based on various historical figures and stories. In writing about the song in 2002, Roma pointed out that "Aldebaran" is named after the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus. In the Arabic language, the title translates to "the follower" as it follows the Pleiades cluster of stars, and the song is based on future Celtic people "passing Aldebaran on their journey to new territories, continuing their migratory pattern which was so predominant in their early history." The track was recorded in its entirety at Aigle Studio as Nicky expressed the difficulty in having to recreate the recording process elsewhere. "The Celts" was used as the main title theme for the television series. "Boadicea", which means "victorious", is a reference to the queen Boudica of the British-Celtic Iceni tribe in East Anglia who led a resistance against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire in 60 A.D., but was defeated and subsequently poisoned herself. As a song about her was already written, Richardson wished for a new track that depicted the idea of "being spellbound" by Boudica, which turned into "I Want Tomorrow". In the liner notes of the album's 1992 reissue, "I Want Tomorrow" is described, simply, as "thoughts of the present" and "March of the Celts" "echoes from the past". "Deireadh an Tuath", which translates from Irish as "End of the Tribe", refers to past spirits and the fertile soil that helps ensure the future of the Celtic people, which is celebrated in the annual Gaelic festival Samhain, held on 31 October. "The Sun in the Stream" was inspired by the legend of the Salmon of Knowledge, a creature written about in various texts in Irish mythology who "possessed all the truth in the world".
"Fairytale" is a track based on a story of early Irish literature about "love, jealousy, secrets and endurance" between Midir, a fairy king, and his love for a princess, Étaín. In the story, Etain is banished and transformed into a pool of water and emerges from it as a butterfly. "Epona" is the name of the horse goddess Epona of the Gallo-Roman religion. "Triad" is a track formed of three sections; "St. Patrick" is a traditional song that refers to St. Patrick who spent six years in captivity after he was captured by the Celtic people. "St. Patrick" lyrics were adapted from ancient hymn "Deus Meus Adiuva Me". The second part, "Cú Chulainn", Irish for "hound of Cullan", is named after the culture hero Cú Chulainn. "Oisin", the final section, meaning "little fawn", is based on the mythological character Oisín. "Bard Dance" refers to the bard, a man of ancient Celtic times who entertained the king. "Dan y Dŵr", which translates to "Under the Water" in the Welsh language, is based on the intentional flooding of the village of Capel Celyn in Wales in order to accommodate a reservoir.
Release.
"Enya" was released on audio cassette and vinyl in March 1987 by BBC Records the United Kingdom, two months before the series aired on television. The album was released in the United States by Atlantic Records, which categorised it as a new age album and placed an imprint saying so on the disc, which Nicky Ryan later thought was "a cowardly thing to do". The album gained enough public interest to reach No. 8 on the Irish Albums Chart. In the United Kingdom, it entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 79 for the week of 6 June 1987, climbing to its peak of No. 69 on its fourth and final week on the chart, the week of 27 June.
Enya released "I Want Tomorrow" as a single in 1987 as a 7-inch and compact disc with "The Celts" as the B-side. A maxi single was also released with the aforementioned tracks and "To Go Beyond (I)" and "To Go Beyond (II)". Following the album's reissue in 1992, "The Celts" was released as a single with "Eclipse", a previously unreleased track from the "Enya" sessions, as a B-side. Another unreleased track, "Spaghetti Western Theme from The Celts", was released in 2005 as a B-side for Enya's 2005 single "Amarantine". It was released in memory of McAuley following his death in 2003.
Filmmaker David Bickley reused music from the soundtrack in "The Memory of Earth", an instalment in his documentary trilogy "Mythological Lands". "Boadicea" was also used in the soundtrack of the 1992 American film "Sleepwalkers". "Epona" appears in the 1991 Steve Martin romantic comedy "L.A. Story".
1992 reissue.
In 1992, after Enya gained worldwide commercial success with her albums "Watermark" (1988) and "Shepherd Moons" (1991) for Warner Music, "Enya" was remastered by Arun Chakraverty and redesigned with new artwork designed by Sooky Choi with photography by David Scheinmann. The album was reissued on 16 November 1992 as "The Celts" by WEA in Europe and Reprise Records in the United States. "The Celts" outperformed its original sales, reaching a new peak of No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart for two weeks from the week of 28 November 1992. It returned for two separate weeks in 1993, one week in 1996, and six consecutive weeks in 1998. In the United States, the album sold a further one million copies. It contains a new version of "Portrait" that is named "Portrait (Out of the Blue)", which was originally released as the B-side to Enya's 1988 worldwide hit single, "Orinoco Flow". In 2009, "The Celts" had a limited Japanese reissue on Super High Material CD with "Eclipse" added as a bonus track.
Sampling of "Boadicea".
"Boadicea" has been sampled by numerous artists. The Fugees sampled it for their song "Ready or Not" on "The Score" (1996). A lawsuit against the group for copyright infringement was prepared as they had not asked for permission and did not give her credit. However, after Enya confirmed that the group were "anti-crime and drugs and their message was quite positive", she decided not to follow through with the suit. As a compromise, later pressings of "The Score" included stickers placed on the cover giving Enya credit.
On the 1999 album "Astronomica" by American heavy metal band Crimson Glory, the intro track "March For Glory" is an interpretation of Enya's "Boadicea".
In 2003, R&B artist Mario Winans sampled "Boadicea" for his song "I Don't Wanna Know". Producer P. Diddy personally contacted Enya for permission and gave her 60 percent of the royalties, and included her name on the song's subtitle as "Mario Winans featuring Enya and P. Diddy". It went on to reach No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart in 2004. "Boadicea" was also sampled on the answer song to "I Don't Wanna Know", "You Should Really Know" by The Pirates featuring Shola Ama, Naila Boss and Ishani, which peaked at No. 8 in the UK in 2004. "Boadicea" with "Ready or Not" was also sampled by R&B group Nina Sky on their single "Time to Go" featuring rapper Angie Martinez, from the mixtape presented by Cipha Sounds. In 2008, Italian DJ Francesco Zeta sampled "Boadicea" for his song "Fairyland", he made another version in 2012, subtitled "ReAmp", that also used the Hardstylesample. In 2011, a small sample of "Boadicea" was used on "Der erste Winter" by German singer Cassandra Steen for the album "Mir so nah". In 2012, hip hop artist Meek Mill sampled "Boadicea" on his mixtape "Dreamchasers 2" on a song named after the Fugees' song, "Ready or Not". In 2015, Masika Kalysha sampled the song on "Hella Hollywood". In 2016, Salvatore Ganacci's song "Dive" sampled "Boadicea", and Enya was credited as a featured artist. On Nigerian-American singer Rotimi's 2019 album "The Beauty of Becoming", he sampled the song on a track entitled "In My Bed", which also featured the rapper Wale.
Critical reception.
A November 1987 review appeared in Australian newspaper "The Age" by Mike Daly. He compared the sound of the album to Clannad following their shift in musical style in the early 1980s, "echoing, shimmering vocals and instrumentals". He questioned if it was "a beautiful, melodic example of New Age music, or perhaps New Folk?" Daly continued to pick out "I Want Tomorrow", "The Celts", "The Sun in the Stream", and "To Go Beyond (II)" as highlight tracks.
Track listing.
All music composed by Enya; all music arranged by Enya and Nicky Ryan; all lyrics by Roma Ryan and in some tracks lyrics written with Enya, except for "St. Patrick" lyrics which adapted from ancient hymn "Deus Meus Adiuva Me" by Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin, though it is credited as "Traditional".
Personnel.
Credits adapted from the album's 1987 and 1992 liner notes.
Musicians
Production
Certifications.
Enya
The Celts