Talking Heads
albums
band. They didn't follow any kind of pattern or really build off of anything except the "idea" of rock music. They
loved to experiment though, and though they had a pop side to their sound, they also dared to cross the line
many, many times. The band was definitely of the disco age: all of their songs were dance-like in some way, but
they were rooted in rock music and especially tribal beats, a sound that consumed the band on their best
albums. It is hard to compare them to other "punk" bands of the time such as the Ramones, Sex, Pistols,
Clash...if I had to pick one I would pick Pere Ubu (though they didn't release and album until after the TH, Ubu
was a huge influence on TH's sound). In all though, Talking Heads fused pop music with a sense of quirkiness
and disjointed music, as well as complicated structures on the best songs and albums, to create a new form of
art rock. That, and they released the best concert film ever made, Stop Making Sense!
Band Members: David Byrne - Vocals, Guitar
Jerry Harrison - Guitar, Keyboards
Tina Waymouth - Bass
Chris Frantz - Drums
Best Albums: More Songs about Buildings and Food, Remain in Light
Biggest Influences: Pere Ubu, Modern Lovers, Fela Kuti
1977
Talking Heads: 77 - 7/8
The debut by the heads must have sounded completely unique for its time. Really, it still does: it gets the
mixture of pop music with disjointed oddness just right. This is not a harsh sounding album, it is not "punk" like
Sex Pistols or Clash are punk. What this album represents is that quirkiness does not mean dorky, and that
great songs can be about everyday life. "Happy Day", "Then Book I Read", "First Week Last Week... Carefree"
are all songs about things like reading, jobs, and love, topics that Byrne really just does different variations on
throughout his whole career. Bryne is definitely kinda strange and awkward, but he is also sincere, touching, and
never alienating (the difference between Talking Heads and say, Pere Ubu).
Structure also rules the album. "No Compassion" is an era defining song: a song-within-a-song approach that
to my knowledge, had NEVER been attempted before, at least not the way Byrne does it. It starts off talking
about "a world where people have problems" in a slow, mysterious tempo - THEN it shifts to a completely
different tune with its own verse and chorus and repeats this twice - THEN it goes back to the beginning mystery
part. It is a awe inspiring example of song writing, and one of the band's greatest tunes. "Psycho Killer" is the
most notorious tune on here, but even that is more disjointed than fast and intense; hell, it could be an acoustic
ballad. Love the way that song talks about "hating people when they are not blind!", cracks me up every time. In
the more traditional sense, we have "Uh Oh Love Comes to Town", "New Feeling", and "Pulled Up", which are
way more traditional sounding pop songs, but they are backed up by the great playing of the band. A little
inconsistent towards the beginning, but all in all a great debut from a promising band. This is a debut that points
towards a future of possibilities galore. - Trevor e.y.
1.uh-oh, love comes to town- 4
2.new feeling- 4
3.tentative decisions- 2
4.happy day- 4
5.who is it- 2
6.no compassion- 4
7.the book i read- 4
8.don't worry about the government- 3
9.first week/last week...carefree- 3
10.psycho killer- 4
11.pulled up- 4
1978
More Songs About Buildings and Food - 9/8
I feel like I need to stress what an underrated album this is: not just a quantum leap from the previous one, not
just the band's most underrated in its discography, but one of the best rock albums ever. It is NONSTOP in its
barrage of great tunes and it changes tones and qualities the exact right amount of times in my opinion. It is
CONSISTENT and every song is great, except maybe "I'm Not in Love" (but that is being picky). It is DANCEABLE
& FUN all the way through, with "The Good Thing", "Stay Hungry", and "With Our Love" containing amazing twists
and turns and "Warning Sign", "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel", and "Take Me to the River" being straight
up funk classics! Most of all, it is PASSIONATE through and through. Byrne pleads with people to take another
look at life in songs like "Girls Want to be with the Girls", "Found a Job", and "The Big Country" (which contains
the great phrase "I wouldn't lift it if he paid me"). Brain Eno's production is the icing on the cake - known for his
moody atmosphere and sheer great skills, he makes the band sound like something out of this world (though the
songs by themselves would be great anyway...but that's besides the point). I have to point out that two of the
best songs ever exist on here: "With Our Love" and "Stay Hungry". The former has a great captivating style while
talking about the problems of natural human relationships and conflicts that arise such as jobs and stress, while
the latter emphasises structure of a different kind changing substantially three different times and maintaining a
constant flow. Bryne proves himself worthy of the past masters of song structure such as Paul McCrtney and
Arthur Lee. Overall, rock music is given one of its best albums with More Songs about Buildings and Food, a
shining light in a time of mainstream garbage such as the late seventies. - Trevor e.y.
1.thank you for sending me an angel- 4
2.with our love- 4
3.the good thing- 4
4.warning sign- 4
5.the girls want to be with the girls- 4
6.found a job- 4
7.artists only- 4
8.i’m not in love- 3
9.stay hungry- 4
10.take me to the river- 4
11.the big country- 4
1979
Fear of Music - 8/8
The band's third album is a measure of human paranoia. Every single song is a topic to be afraid of, an
experiment by Byrne to explore why people think like they do. By any other band this would be hard listening but
Talking Heads do it with the audience in mind, and comes across with some of the groups most accessible
songs. "Life During Wartime" is one of the most paranoid songs ever, but it is performed with such an attitude
that all you wanna do is dance! Many other songs are of similar vein - "Heaven" and "Mind" sounding pleasant
while in reality being very serious in tone, while "I Zimbra" is some exuberant African funk example that has little
to do with the theme. "Paper", "Life During Wartime", and "Electric Guitar" exemplify this paranoid mood and
actually SOUNDING paranoid and crazy, and they work very well. "Animals" does not work so well, and is the only
failed experiment on here. In some strange way that is hard to explain with words (most great albums are), Fear
of Music has a flow to it that works well despite the overall negative tone and paranoid fantasies. The band
shows probably its least accessible side with this but only because it is so demented at points ("Drugs" and "Air"
come to mind); it is all relatively easy to enjoy. With tunes like "Cities", "Heaven", "Mind", hell....about any nine
songs on here are great by any standards, and that makes it another indispensable album by the band.
- Trevor e.y.
1.i zimbra- 3
2.mind- 4
3.paper- 4
4.cities- 4
5.life during wartime- 4
6.memories can't wait- 4
7.air- 4
8.heaven- 4
9.animals- 2
10.electric guitar- 4
11.drugs- 4
1980
Remain in Light - 9/8
"Don't you miss it, don't you miss it; some of you people just about missed it," says David Byrne in the first
song of the Talking Head's 4th album. Well, some people never got it, but this is not only one of the best albums
ever, but also one of the most unique. Morphing disco, dance, and African/Native American rhythms into
abnormal and repetitive songs, this album is a hypnotic trance of music that you could listen to everyday and still
get something out of it. The first half of the album is very upbeat, and the second half gradually becomes
depressing until the finale; basically it goes from chaos to normality (the classic single "Once in a Lifetime" and
"Houses in Motion") then back into chaos ."The Overload" is hard to get used to, but once you start to like it, you
will realize it is one of the best songs on the album. My other personal favorite is "The Great Curve" with its
awesome gospel music quality, it makes you want to go join a chorus and sing in! Another immortal thing about it
is the way the album is not dated, but still sounds futuristic to this day. '77, More Songs About Buildings and
Food, and Fear of Music are all great albums, and Remain in Light is right there with them among the top of the
rock album heap, looking down. The album is flawless, every song is great (even though there are only eight, if I
had to like one the least it would be "Houses in Motion"). Remain in Light basically has more to offer than almost
any other album does, period. Ladies and gents, this is great music experimentation. - Trevor e.y.
1.born under punches- 4
2.crosseyed and painless- 4
3.the great curve- 4
4.once in a lifetime- 4
5.houses in motion- 3
6.seen and not seen- 4
7.listening wind- 4
8.the overload- 4
1983
Speaking in Tounges - 7/8
Say what you want about the awful 1980's production (people were little spoiled by the previous Eno produced
albums, how could you not be? It's Eno damn it!), Speaking in Tounges is in the same league as the previous TH
records as a great album. No, it's not Remain in Light or More Songs, but it could easily be as great as '77 or
maybe even Fear of Music. The pop quotient is up as "Making Flippy Floppy", "This Must be the Place",
"Girlfriend is Better", and "Slippery People" are perfect as singles. In truth, it's not that much of a departure from
"Life During Wartime", "Pulling Up", or "Happy Day" from previous records. On the other hand, not everything on
here was that poppy, and in the darker songs the album finds its strength: "Swamp" is a demented piece of work
that rivals anything on Fear of Music in paranoia territory; "Burning Down the House" was a great single, but it is
disjointed and punky also, making it humorous that it was ever a hit in my opinion; "Pull up the Roots" is among
the band's best album tracks and truly a spacey, Remain in Light-esque venture. There are some bad tunes
though, "I Get Wild" and "Moon Rocks" are lame by any one's standards. Expect the expected: dance music
done incredibly well with every member of the band being right on, and a bit of giddiness, African
instrumentation, and dementia, and you'll enjoy this as well as anything the band has done so far.
- Trevor e.y.
1.burning down the house- 4
2.making flippy floppy- 4
3.girlfriend is better- 3
4.slippery people- 4
5.i get wild/wild gravity- 2
6.swamp- 4
7.moon rocks- 2
8.pull up the roots- 4
9.this must be the place- 4
1985
Little Creatures - 5/8
Book-ended by two of the band's biggest singles, the touching "And She Was" and the marching "Road to
Nowhere", this album can be deceiving. It is not that it is bad, it is just not that good. The band reaches into its
back catalogue because it is running out of ideas. "Give Me Back My Name" rips off "Air"; "Walk It Down" rips of
"Girlfriend is Better"; none of them do it so much as I would warrant suing for plagiarism (isn't this the year John
Fogerty got sued for ripping off himself? He won that case by the way) but it's just they way they seem to be out
of ideas that bothers me. "Creatures of Love" starts off great with its "I've seen sex and I think it's ok" lyric, but
the chorus is generic. Not only that, "The Lady Don't Mind" through "Television Man" are lame songs to the core,
and it doesn't get more boring than that. A disappointing album, but "And She Was" might be worth the price of
the album alone. - Trevor e.y.
1.and she was- 4
2.give me back my name- 2
3.creatures of love- 3
4.the lady don't mind- 2
5.perfect world- 2
6.stay up late- 2
7.walk it down- 2
8.television man- 2
9.road to nowhere- 4
1986
True Stories - 6/8
True Stories is worlds better than Little Creatures; anyone who tells you any different is has not really
listened. The production is better for those who care, and the songs are way better. There is a funny story with
this: since Byrne made the soundtrack to the movie with different voices for almost every song, he wanted to
make a true soundtrack for the album but the record company wouldn't allow it. So Byrne had to sing all of these
songs with his own vocals, and it's not that they are bad like that but it would have been much more fun with the
actors form the movie (if you have never seen the film and are a Talking Heads fan, go buy it right now! It truly is
a one of a kind comedy.) "Wild Wild Life", "Love for Sale", "Dream Operator", and "People Like Us" are some of
the best pop songs this band has ever done, and pop reigns supreme here. The stranger songs, "Hey Now" and
"Papa Legba", don't work as well without the visuals applied to them in the film, and so they suffer on the album.
"Radio Head" of course, inspired the band of the same name. Some of the other songs are not as great on just a
"soundtrack" or "album" as they were in the movie, but even so, this is a good record and a strong album for the
late period Talking Heads. It is definitely one of the most laid back and easy going. - Trevor e.y.
1.love for sale- 4
2.puzzlin evidence- 3
3.hey now- 2
4.papa legba- 1
5.wild wild life- 4
6.radio head- 3
7.dream operator- 4
8.people like us- 4
9.city of dreams- 3
1988
Naked - 3/8
I wanted to like this final TH album, but its unlikeable. They try to make another Remain in Light, plain and
simple. It does NOT WORK. I'd like to say I get a kick out of it because it is bad, and that it has a certain charm to
it, but I can't say that. It is lame, it is bad. "Ruby Dear" is a great tune I guess; with more songs like that they
could have made something special, but no. It ain't special, and a bad way for such a great band to go out of the
world. Oh well, at least they stopped after this! How could you not, blugh. The monkey on the cover of the album
with the confused look should give you a hint on how good the record is. Too bad monkey's can't talk.
- Trevor e.y.
1.blind- 3
2.mr. jones- 1
3.totally nude- 2
4.ruby dear- 4
5.flowers- 2
6.the democratic circus- 2
7.the facts of life- 1
8.mommy daddy you and i- 1
9.big daddy- 1
10.bill- 2
11.cool water- 3
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