The Keys to Enya’s Kingdom
Her success so deeply contradicts accepted industry wisdom that it’s inspired a term — “Enya-nomics” — to describe it
.. In her real life, she checks her email once every few weeks, and even then, very quickly. “It feels so cold,” she says, making a face like she’d bitten into a lemon. “The energy is no good. I’d rather go for a walk.”
.. Her style has been derogatorily described as Muzak or New Age — the aural approximation of a warm bath — but might be more fairly described as ancient choral music on synth steroids.
.. She’s referring to the work of the so-called “triad” that make up Enya, the musical entity. Enya conjures the melodies; husband-and-wife team Nicky and Roma Ryan are responsible for the production (him) and lyrics (her).
.. the sixth of nine children.
.. Enya was in the deep middle of the birth order. “Let’s say there’d be a question like ‘Will we go to the pictures today?’” Enya recalls. “What chance did I have to say yes or no?” At this, she laughs: It’s not a point of resentment. “By the time it came down to number five, — that’s me — it was just like, Here we go. It was difficult to be heard, but I was very comfortable with that because I was able to be myself, able to be let alone.”
.. “And my family, we’d have to be careful speaking Gaelic: If you did, you were pinpointing where you came from, and it was too political at the time. Whereas for us, it was our first language, and we didn’t see anything wrong with it.”
.. Now she overlooks Bono’s house. “It’s really quite covered,” she says bashfully. “There’s a lot of trees. But you do see the top of his house.”
“We meet very often,” she admits. “Because of the areas we frequent to eat, I see a lot of him.”