Enya (album)

Enya
Soundtrack album by Enya
Released 1987
Recorded 1985 - 1986
Genre Celtic
Length 39:06
Label BBC
Producer Nicky Ryan
Enya chronology
Enya
(1987)
Watermark
(1988)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]

Enya (later re-released as The Celts) is a soundtrack album by Irish singer Enya, released in 1987 (see 1987 in music), accompanying the BBC documentary The Celts.

Contents

Background

Recorded in 1986, it was not released until 1987 when the series was first broadcast. The album was first released in the UK by the BBC on their own label, and later issued in North America by Atlantic Records. In 1992, Warner Music reissued a remixed and slightly revised version of the album as The Celts. The original version Enya was no longer manufactured. The album contains only a portion of the music Enya composed for the TV series. In 1992, coinciding with the reissue of the album, a previously unreleased track from these sessions, "Eclipse", was released as a B-side on the CD single for "the Celts". In 2005, another previously unreleased track from the same sessions, a "Spaghetti Western Theme" done in the style of Hugo Montenegro, was released on the CD single for "Amarantine", in memory of one of the producers of the TV series.

Music from the Celts soundtrack would later be reused for the soundtrack of the video production The Memory of Earth, produced by David Bickley.[2] The song "Boadicea" was also on the soundtrack of the 1992 film Sleepwalkers.

Sampling by other artists

The Fugees sampled "Boadicea" from this album for their song "Ready or Not" on 1996's The Score. Enya had prepared to sue the group for copyright infringement because they had not asked for permission and did not give her credit. After learning that The Fugees were not gangsta rappers, Enya declined to follow through with the suit, but stickers were then placed on The Score giving Enya credit for her work.[3] Mario Winans also sampled "Boadicea" for the melody of the song "I Don't Wanna Know". Producer P. Diddy reportedly personally contacted Enya for permission and gave her 60 percent of the royalties.[4] She also received name billing ("Mario Winans featuring Enya and P. Diddy") for the song, which turned out to be a hit, putting her name #2 on the "Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks" chart in 2004. The song was also sampled on the answer-back song "You Should Really Know" by The Pirates featuring Shola Ama, Naila Boss & Ishani which peaked at #8 on the UK Singles Chart. "Boadicea" (with "Ready or Not") was also sampled by Nina Sky for their hype single "Time To Go" featuring Angie Martinez, from the mixtape presented by Cipha Sounds.

The title track was used as the theme music for the sports show "Gaelic Games" which aired in the UK on Channel 4 in the 1990s.

Track listing

All music composed by Enya.

  1. "The Celts" – 2:50
  2. "Aldebaran" (dedicated to Ridley Scott) – 3:05
  3. "I Want Tomorrow" – 4:02
  4. "March of the Celts" – 3:10
  5. "Deireadh an Tuath" – 1:43
  6. "The Sun in the Stream" – 2:55
  7. "To Go Beyond, Pt. 1" – 1:20
  8. "Fairytale" – 3:03
  9. "Epona" – 1:36
  10. "Triad: St. Patrick / Cú Chulainn / Oisin" – 4:25
  11. "Portrait" – 1:23 1
  12. "Boadicea" – 3:30
  13. "Bard Dance" – 1:23
  14. "Dan y Dŵr" – 1:41
  15. "To Go Beyond, Pt. 2" – 2:50

1 The 1992 Warner reissue replaced the original recording of this song (called "Portrait") with a longer re-recording of the same piece (called "Out of the Blue"), which had been released as the B-side of "Orinoco Flow" in 1988; the 1992 album lists the track as "Portrait (Out of the Blue)". The original "Portrait" version can be found on the BBC and Atlantic Records issues.

Personnel

Production

Certifications

Region Certification Sales/shipments
United States (RIAA)[5] Platinum 1,000,000^

^shipments figures based on certification alone

References