She has sold some 80 million albums over her three decades-long career, despite the fact that she rarely performs live, has never toured and rarely interviews. She has amassed a fortune of £91 million ($119 million). Similarly, while some critics may not take Enya seriously as a musician - despite the fact that she plays four instruments and sings in at least six languages, including Elvish and Loxian - she has plenty of fans who certainly appreciate her talent and have helped her become one of the most financially successful musicians in the world. Yet wellness cures, sound baths, oils and candles are a booming business, perhaps in part because modern medicine doesn't always take women's needs seriously, causing many to look elsewhere for cures. I get why critics like Christgau would scoff at this woman's work after all, people don't tend to take anything sold in a New Age store too seriously. Its multi-layered electronica feels like it was created specifically to be played in New Age shops, the CDs stacked next to the cash register alongside angel stones and serenity oils.
But Enya has never liked the categorization, and the trio is far too musically accomplished to be considered run-of-the-mill crystal store-soundtrack "New Age" music anyway, or part of what Christgau dubbed a "women-are-angels scam." It's easy to understand the categorization, of course after all, the album sounds like the aural equivalent of burgundy crushed velvet. The Grammys dubbed Enya's music New Age, and the group has earned four Grammy Awards in that category. When Oregon State University researchers found a new species of fish swimming in the Orinoco River, they named it Leporinus enyae after the singer. The album's influence extends beyond the work of musicians, too. She has influenced artists like Weyes Blood, and Nicki Minaj told V magazine that Enya was in heavy rotation while Minaj was working on The Pinkprint.
The influence of Watermark can still be felt today in samples - experimental pop musician Panda Bear used "Na Laetha Geal M'òige" on his 2007 song "Search for Delicious," and "Exile" was incongruously woven into German techno band Scooter's "Jigga Jigga!" - as well as in interviews where her work is cited by artists. The album resonated with fans around the globe, who snatched it up to play at home while aligning their crystals and drawing up horoscopes, or just as the soundtrack to a dinner party. "Cursum Perficio" (sung in Latin, like all good pop hits) has a binding spell woven into its grooves "Miss Clare Remembers" is a sentimental, dexterous piano ballad and "Evening Falls." is a soporific, detailed dreamscape. While "Orinoco Flow," with its daydream encouragement to "sail away, sail away, sail away," was the chart-topper, it's not the only memorable track on the album. 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. 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.
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