Anti Marketing: Enya
How does a pop culture recluse earn so much commercial success with extremely limited publication? Business schools, unable to decipher the trend, have dubbed this phenomenon “Enya-nomics.”
Enya's music is like a National Geographic calendar come to life. Her ethereal melodies and lush harmonies create a soundscape that is both calming and uplifting. Her fans often describe her music as "otherworldly" or "sacred," and some even claim that it has healing properties. Her record covers display herself as a model in impressionist paintings or posed regally in a fantasy scene. Enya herself has said that she doesn't like to categorise her music, preferring to simply call it "Enya" rather than categorising it under earth-bound genres like New Age.
As the wealthiest woman in British music with a fortune of £100 million, few are as successful, yet so private. Enya lives in a six-bedroom castle next to Bono (of U2) — yes, a real castle with 14 hectares garden called the Manderley Castle, in south Dublin, Ireland. She reportedly outbid Michael Flatley for the 1840 slice of this turreted Victoriana, paying £ 2.7 million in 1997. And because of the threat from stalkers, she spent £ 250,000 reinforcing security there, raising the ramparts to more than 2,7 metres high.
But unlike her neighbour Bono, whose income stems from endless mega world tours with his band U2, Enya does not tour, and never has toured. She submits to minimal press. She won’t provide details of her private life. And she takes up to seven years between albums — releasing only eight studio albums in the time span of 35 years. Yet she has sold a total of more than 80 million records! (majority of it were physical copies).
How does a pop culture recluse earn so much commercial success with extremely limited publication? Business schools, unable to decipher the trend, have dubbed this phenomenon “Enya-nomics.”
Enya has an official Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts, but it’s super under the radar and she (or her social media team) rarely posts anything. But it’s not just social media that she avoids, because even more mainstream forms of online communication platforms are avoided by the singer. She checks her email every few weeks, and when she does check it, she does so quickly. “It feels so cold,” she told BuzzFeed in 2015. “The energy is no good. I’d rather go for a walk.”
Enya has never sought to be in the public eye. “My private lifestyle bothers a lot of people,” she told The Guardian back in 2000, adding: “I love the music to be known, but I’m not after fame for myself.” She recalls the flack she got for revealing in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that she craves silence. “The reaction was like, ‘Whoa, strange person here!’ Now people know what it’s about but, you know, life is so busy you need a moment” she told Express.
Born Eithne Patricia Ní Bhraonáin in 1961, the sixth of nine children, Enya spent her rural Irish upbringing learning music and plays the majority of instruments on her albums herself. As an act, Enya actually operates and records mostly as a trio, and they’ve never collaborated with outsiders. Along with producer / good friends Nicky Ryan and his wife Roma as lyricist, the threesome has controlled every element of her music since 1982.
Enya once turned down an invitation from famed director James Cameron, it was when he asked her to write and sing a theme song for his iconic blockbuster Titanic. “I was sent a script and they were actually working with some of my music as they were filming. James Cameron, he approached and sent the script, but what happened was when we were talking about the end song, it was to be a collaboration and that’s something that I’ve actually never done. I’ve felt, I get to write the song, I sing. I’ve always written the melodies so I find it kind of strange and I was working on an album, so I just said it wasn’t going to happen if it was a collaboration” she told Forbes.