The year was 1990.
NASA launched the Hubble Telescope and computer scientists tested the first web server that would lead to today’s internet of on-demand anything and everything.
This is also the year when Enigma’s MCMXC a.D. album was released to a world that was largely analog with home phone lines and fax machines. Television antennas were still quite common on rooftops.
Humanity was on the cusp of an immense digital change and we didn’t even know it as we tuned into the Simpsons.
Listening to the 33 year old album today feels as if it was just produced in a sophisticated studio with its ambient and electronic sounds, profound beats and apocalyptic and religious themes.
I clearly remember at age 10, with my new Gameboy sitting in the back of the family car, cruising with my parents with this album playing from these relatively new things called compact discs. The sound was so crisp and clean compared to the radio.
One time, late at night, my dad and I cruised to see the neighborhood Christmas lights while listening to Dark Side of the Moon and MCMXC a.D.
The album’s creator, Michael Cretu, even told a music reviewer in 1991 the album is “something between Art of Noise and Vangelis and Pink Floyd.”
Tracks like “Principles of Lust: Sadness” and “Mea Culpa” would transport me to a new musical dimension.
The late 80s and early 90s were the formative years of my music tastes and there’s no doubt MCMXC a.D. helped solidify my love of electronic music.
It’s hard to describe the album with justice. It begins with the track “The Voice of Enigma” as a woman speaks and says:
“We will take you with us into another world. Into the world of music, spirit and meditation. Turn off the light. Take a deep breath and relax.”
From there, the album is like a slow rocket ship into a cosmic world of hooded monks chanting in Latin, a woman having what sounds like an orgasm, and deep hypnotic beats good enough for a Las Vegas nightclub.
It’s quite clear the tracks with religious chanting inspired the album CHANT which was released a few years later.
As a teenager, I used to be ashamed that I loved this album so much because of its new age category and how it seemed more suitable for a health spa for people in their 40s.
Well damn, now that I’m steeped in my 40s, I can proudly say I’ve always loved this album and it’s why I’m publicly declaring it in this post.
In 1991, a Gannett News Service reporter wrote “Just how far Enigma goes in the United States will depend on whether the public continues to thrive on his unusually sensual mix of dance and classical music.”
MCMXC a.D. is still sophisticated and timeless as ever as I still play the album, this time from the web as the Hubble Telescope still floats somewhere above my head.
JEREMY JOJOLA 