Brian Eno’s Windows Reboot Chime Inducted Into National Recording Registry
Consequence.net
Posted on: April 12th, 2025
Posted on: April 12th, 2025
More than 30 years ago, Microsoft commissioned Brian Eno to create the now-iconic Windows 95 Startup Sound Now, the meticulously created "Microsoft Sound" is among this year's selection of 25 "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" pieces of recorded music archived into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.
Other 2025 inductions include classic albums like Tracy Chapman's self-titled debut Tracy Chapman, Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, the Hamilton original cast recording, and Mary J. Blige's My Life.
Celine Dion's Titanic anthem My Heart Will Go On, Charley Pride's Kiss an Angel Good Mornin, Vicente Fernandez 's ranchera song El Rey and Chuck Thompson's radio broadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series have also been added.
In a 1996 interview with SFGate, Eno spoke about composing the Windows 95 startup sound: "The thing from the agency said, 'We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,' this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.'"
The ambient music legend explained that he composed 84 "tiny, tiny little pieces of music" before creating the final arpeggio, which actually came in around five or six seconds. Revisit it for nostalgia's sake below.
Other 2025 inductions include classic albums like Tracy Chapman's self-titled debut Tracy Chapman, Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, the Hamilton original cast recording, and Mary J. Blige's My Life.
Celine Dion's Titanic anthem My Heart Will Go On, Charley Pride's Kiss an Angel Good Mornin, Vicente Fernandez 's ranchera song El Rey and Chuck Thompson's radio broadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series have also been added.
In a 1996 interview with SFGate, Eno spoke about composing the Windows 95 startup sound: "The thing from the agency said, 'We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,' this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.'"
The ambient music legend explained that he composed 84 "tiny, tiny little pieces of music" before creating the final arpeggio, which actually came in around five or six seconds. Revisit it for nostalgia's sake below.
