From an interview with Dan Lanois from a couple of years back:

What did you learn working with Eno?

At the time I thought it was all eccentric and completely out of step with anything commercial — and I still feel that way. [Laughs.] But funnily enough, they are the records that people will keep talking about. It’s what got me the gig with Peter Gabriel.

It’s kind of interesting: When you do things without a commercial thought, but it just reaches somebody’s heart somewhere, that may ultimately lead to commerciality. Having that kind of naive intention, where you’re just trying to do the best thing you can with what you have — those kinds of pure forms speak of honesty, and people respond to honesty.

And as obscure as those ambient records with Eno were, we were really dedicated to the thing, we were living it, and it was a great time of revelation, because at that moment I thought: I will never again do something that I don’t want to do.