24 in the U.S., spending 17 weeks on the Billboard charts. When Enya released "Orinoco Flow," the lead single from Watermark, it ousted Robin Beck's "First Time," a hair metal slow jam, as the No. Its success is even more surprising when you think about what other albums topped the charts in 1988, like George Michael's Faith and Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction. It's a weird album, filled with world beats played out on synthesizers with Enya's crisp enunciation giving it a nearly choral feel. While Watermark has its roots in traditional Irish music with Celtic rhythms and melodies that flow as easily as a Riverdance routine, its music truly doesn't fit into any established genre. When Watermark was released in 1988, rock critic Robert Christgau gave the album a D+, saying that the album "makes hay of pop's old reliable women-are-angels scam." It's a fair assessment, but he says that like it's a bad thing - when in fact, it's why the album should be included in a canon of the greatest albums made by women. In an occurrence that could have ended the career of a less confident artist, her follow-up, Watermark, was critically panned. It's an impressive feat made even more impressive by the fact that her self-titled debut album was scarcely remarked upon by the global press.
And in the past 16 years, Enya has spent 283 weeks - about five and a half years - in the No. Her fans kept her 1991 album Shepherd Moons on the Billboard 200 chart for 238 weeks. The track is still constantly played and referred to in popular culture and it will be hard to find a person that has never heard that ‘Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away’ chorus before! As for Enya’s career, she is still going strong.Turning The Tables A New Canon: In Pop Music, Women Belong At The Center Of The Storyĭespite her lack of interest in the trappings of fame (save for the castle she bought herself), Enya truly is famous. It is safe to say that ‘Orinico Flow’, 30 years later, has reached iconic status. “We can steer, we can near, with Rob Dickins on the wheel”, Enya sings towards the end of the tune. Other than listing a whole lot of coastal places and islands she wants to sail to, the song text also contains a shout out to Rob Dickins, a close collaborator who did Enya’s art direction as well as working in the studio with her. Interestingly enough, the studio in London where parts of the track were recorded, is called the Orinoco Studio, so it is not hard to guess where that inspiration came from. The title of the track is based on the Orinoco River that runs through Venezuela and Colombia. The absolutely enchanting track has this almost meditative quality that is strived for in New Age, but at the same time delivers some instant hooks to appeal to the masses.
‘Orinoco Flow’, written by Enya and Nicky Ryan, who also produced the track, became one of the defining Celtic sounding New Age and pop crossover successes. It all speaks volumes for how game changing ‘Orinoco Flow’ was for her career, but not only that! She even re-released a remastered version under the name The Celts in 1992. Her self-titled debut already came out in 1987, but it was not until she gained massive success with ‘Orinoco Flow’ and Watermark and the albums that followed, that the debut started selling more and more too (6 million copies to be precise). ‘Orinoco Flow’ was released as the lead single of Enya’s second album Watermark, which sold 11 million copies over the years. Let’s sail all the way back to 1988 to find out more about this iconic track! On the 15th October of 1988, only one day after Robin Beck’s ‘First Time’, Enya released the single that would properly kick off her career: ‘Orinoco Flow’. In A Bit of a Classic, A Bit of Pop Music takes you back in time to relive a pop release we definitely should not forget about.