The Heads: No Talking Just Head

THE HEADS: NO TALKING JUST HEAD (1996)

1) Damage Iʼve Done; 2) The King Is Gone; 3) No Talking Just Head; 4) Never Mind; 5) No Big Bang; 6) Donʼt Take My Kindness For Weakness; 7) No More Lonely Nights; 8) Indie Hair; 9) Punk Lolita; 10) Only The Lonely; 11) Papersnow; 12) Blue Blue Moon.

General verdict: Misleading in appearance and far from perfection, but an enjoyable memento of the overall healthy musical climate of the mid-Nineties all the same.

A bad, bad, bad promotional decision yielded a predictable result: No Talking Just Head is forever etched in popular conscience as a crass attempt to cash in on the name of a band whose existence without David Byrne makes about as much sense as the existence of The Kinks without Ray Davies, or of King Crimson without Robert Fripp (I make these particular analogies to point out that Ray, Robert, or David were not the only ingredients that mattered at all, but they were certainly the one and only irreplaceable ingredient). However, if we forget the title of the album, or its color gamma that is clearly reminiscent of the style on True Stories, the truth will emerge fairly quickly — in reality this is, of course, just a Tom Tom Club album that tries to take itself somewhat more seriously than ever before.

I suppose that Tina, Chris, and Frantz were all missing those sweet days of fame and fortune, and neither Jerryʼs nor the Tom Tom Clubʼs separate careers seemed to show any commercial promise — which is why they resorted to this rather lame gesture, and it backfired on them hard: not only was the album trashed quite savagely by just about any critic who mattered, they also got embroiled in litigation with Byrne when they tried to go on tour supporting it. "How do I undo the damage I have done?" goes the chorus to the very first song, almost prophetically so. Well, time does heal certain wounds, and we should look back at the record without biases. After all, for all of Byrneʼs genius the man is not impeccable, and the sharpness and depth of his talent had decreased by the late Eighties / early Nineties anyway, and there is absolutely no guarantee that even a real full-on reunion of Talking Heads around 1996 could have been a success. In a way, I might even feel oddly more contented having this record to sit through than, say, another clone of Naked, let alone a mix of Tom Tom Club with the limp melancholy of David Byrne.

The weirdest decision here was to relegate all the vocal parts to an assortment of guest stars instead of singing them on their own — despite the fact that Tina and Jerry are accomplished singers; maybe they were afraid that having Tina coo or rap out any of these tunes would make the Tom Tom Club association too obvious, I have no idea. To make the guests feel more at home, the «Heads» actually let them compose their own lyrics most of the time. The guests themselves range from old friends from the classic days of New Wave, including Debbie Harry, Richard Hell, and Andy Partridge, to younger heroes such as Shaun Ryder from Happy Mondays, Johnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde, and Ed Kowalczyk from Live. This randomization has provoked the second most common accusation against the record — that it has no direction and no idea what it is supposed to do — but I think, in all honesty, that this is not very fair.

I mean, it certainly does not have a clear sense of direction, but neither did the White Album and we do not usually take it as a serious problem. No Talking Just Head is just a panoramic collection of songs that sounds very much of its time, reflecting echoes of everything from the British Madchester scene to the American college rock scene. Some of it is bad, some is okay, but there does seem to be a general air of depression, disillusionment, and deadpan sarcasm to the proceedings — making them weightier and less playful than your average Tom Tom Club record. So it is really misguiding to say that everybody just went into the recording studio without any plan of action whatsoever. But, of course, with so many different variables it would be irrational to expect consistency, either.

Personally, I think that the «moodier», less dance-oriented parts of the record work okay. The title track, given over to Debbie Harry, is a minor highlight — a dark, slow, industrialized piece of electrofunk over which Harry delivers one hell of a long-winded menace, open to all sorts of interpretation (revenge on a cheating boyfriend? dehumanization and mental submission of society to Big Brother? in any case, itʼs a bit of a blast to hear Debbie Harry say "grease it up good, work it back and forth, no talking just head" to her imaginary victim). So are the preceding two songs — ʽDamage Iʼve Doneʼ, sung by Napolitano to a deep, Nirvana-ish bass riff and culminating in a screechy, but catchy chorus; and ʽThe King Is Goneʼ, with Michael Hutchence from INXS — the albumʼs rockiest piece which sounds like it could have been some late period Stones outtake. It does not strive for much: it just wants to be a little sleazy, a little threatening, and a little bizarre, and it does just that.

As time goes by, different songs produce different impressions, and a lot will depend on whether you find certain clichés of the mid-Nineties alt-rock / dance-rock scene annoying or not — for instance, I think that the attempt to marry grunge, trip-hop, and that GunsʼnʼRoses schtick on the Shaun Ryder-led ʽDonʼt Take My Kindness For Weaknessʼ is pretty abysmal, but find the Kowalczyk-sung ʽIndie Hairʼ a fairly cuddly and endearing attempt to emulate the classic sound of early R.E.M. (and that opening arpeggiated riff is actually more catchy than the absolute majority of R.E.M. songs!). I think that Maria McKee does a bad job on the way too technophile dance number ʽNo Big Bangʼ, but Malin Anneteg does a good job on ʽNo More Lonely Nightsʼ, whose cold ʼnʼ distant arrangement is somewhat reminiscent of Man Machine-era Kraftwerk. I do not like the Andy Partridge number (it sounds too much like an intentionally weirdified adult contemporary tune), but I do like ʽPunk Lolitaʼ, because what can be more fun than Tina and Debbie joining forces to rap-paint a sarcastic portrait of their old selves?

All these choices could be reversed depending on personal tastes, and that is good — there can hardly be any consensus on this record, meaning that it is nowhere near to the universal disaster that its reputation claims it to be. It is bizarre, diverse, and it manages to be fun much, if not all, of the time. Simply remember it as part of the Tom Tom Club discography, rather than part of the Talking Heads discography, and things will be fine.