Talking Heads: Naked

TALKING HEADS: NAKED (1988)

1) Blind; 2) Mr. Jones; 3) Totally Nude; 4) Ruby Dear; 5) (Nothing But) Flowers; 6) The Democratic Circus; 7) The Facts Of Life; 8) Mommy, Daddy, You And I; 9) Big Daddy; 10) Bill; 11) Cool Water.

General verdict: Nice, diverse, and toothless grooves, more fit for a carefree holiday session than a solid farewell statement. And totally abusive of the chimpanzee stereotype.

Talking Headsʼ last album is often viewed as a compromise of sorts between their classic funky style and the pop-oriented twist of the previous two albums — a compromise that can often be seen within a single track; already at the very beginning, the tribal rhythms of ʽBlindʼ and its avantgarde electric guitar bring back memories of ʽBorn Under Punchesʼ, but the merry merry brass section could not exist without the prehistory of Little Creatures and True Stories. The problem with this interpretation is that, most likely, there was never any conscious decision to reach a compromise. The only decision that there seems to have been was as follows: go to Paris, have yourself a good time, invite lots of friends into the studio, and let fate take its course and guide us into the world of spontaneous bliss.

It is interesting to hear at least one Talking Heads album like this — without the kind of grueling self-discipline and meticulous calculation that their music usually suggests. But interesting does not necessarily equal successful. By letting their hair down and loosening up, the band seemingly lost its focus; and by compromising between the two successful modes of operation they had previously known, they made sure that the funky parts are no longer all that tense and terrifying, while the pop parts are no longer so openly endearing. Of all Talking Heads albums, this is the only one that has no easily discernible face — other than the monkey on the front cover, whose facial expression is a suitable illustration to the point made in ʽThe Facts Of Lifeʼ: «I dare you to think that you are really superior to me, motherfucker!» But if, as that song states, "Iʼm afraid that God has no master plan", then neither does David Byrne on this album; and without a master plan, Naked looks kind of... naked.

This does not mean that the songs are not likable. ʽBlindʼ is driven by a cool, tight groove — it is simply that there is no menace, no bite, no shivery epicness to that groove. It simply rolls along and invites you to dance. Byrne sings something that could be interpreted as a rant against police violence (though the lyrics have absolutely no matching points with the surrealistic video), a Cameroonian guitarist plays a Belew-style outro solo, but... letʼs face it, anybody could have recorded this track — at least, any respectable R&B combo with a good sense of groove. It does not help matters that instead of bringing back Eno, they put Steve Lillywhite in the producerʼs seat — the man partially responsible for the success of Peter Gabriel III and U2ʼs early albums, but also the man behind the disaster of The Rolling Stonesʼ Dirty Work; in any case, for these sessions he decided to keep a low profile, since there are almost no signs of the classic electronic coating that he used to smear on everything he came in contact with. Nothing spoiled — and nothing gained. On the other hand, nobody really knows if Eno could have done anything with this kind of material, either. If there is no cosmic mystique in the embryo, what can you expect from even the most talented of all midwives?

By the time ʽMr. Jonesʼ comes around, it becomes a little more clear what is going on: Naked is not an album of dark frenzy or domestic bliss, but rather one of «cozy sarcasm». Its grooves are nominally sunny and friendly, but offset somewhat by Davidʼs incessant rambling jabs against no one in particular and everyone you can think of. ʽMr. Jonesʼ here might very well be related to Dylanʼs Mr. Jones from ʽBallad Of A Thin Manʼ, except that the something that was happening here long ago is definitely over, and now "itʼs a big day for Mr. Jones, he is not so square". In the meantime, the music has surreptitiously mutated from familiar funk into all-out Latin territory, with no fewer than seven brass players supplying the rucus — all nice and well, but where are actual Talking Heads behind all this?

The nail-that-genre game continues with boppy ska on ʽTotally Nudeʼ, whose message mimicks the Kinksʼ ʽApemanʼ; the Bo Diddley beat on ʽRuby Dearʼ, a song that could have very easily been written by Bo himself (so, again, what is it doing on a Talking Heads album?); and, later on, with more excursions into country and blues territory, revealing that the «return to funkiness», heralded with ʽBlindʼ, was essentially a decoy, and that Naked is a return to nothing in particular. In a way, it represents progress, but blind progress — groping at anything that comes along, as long as the groove can be made playful, sarcastic, and accessible.

The horrible thing is that I like all these songs while they are playing — I just can never shake up any memories of them once they are gone. Nice and tasteful grooves; clever lyrics that poke fun at everything from family values to rich socialites to politicians to Homo sapiens as a whole; clean, but raw production that completely ignores 1988 outside the window and makes the album sound like it could have been made in 2018 — whatʼs not to like? But liking is one thing, and feeling profound, game-changing impact is another. By Talking Heads standards, all of these songs are trifles. ʽThe Facts Of Lifeʼ, which runs longer than everything else, might claim to be an exception — a slow, solemn, epic condemnation of the human race — but the music has such a comic sheen, instead of sending even the slightest hint of doom, that you kind of expect Byrne to slip into Bee Gees-ish falsetto at one point, and that he does. ʽ(Nothing But) Flowersʼ, the second single off the album and probably the most often played one, is another bit of shallow Latin dance that is quite enjoyable (and also continues the «naturalistic» message of ʽTotally Nudeʼ) and just as quickly forgettable.

The biggest disappointment is probably the grand finale: ʽCool Waterʼ is a surprisingly serious, humorless lament about the fate of the underprivileged — arguably the most straightforward social statement on a Talking Heads album ever — and it totally misses the mark. The music is some kind of barely registering indie-folk shuffle that is more Smiths than Talking Heads (not surprisingly since Johnny Marr is in guitar control on this one) and much more monotonous than the average Smiths song; and, as you can probably tell, Byrneʼs vocal style is really no good for direct social indictments in the plaintive genre. As not only the last song on a Talking Heads album, but the last song on the last Talking Heads album, ʽCool Waterʼ is a pretty pathetic way to fizzle out a great career (though arguably not much worse than ʽCity Of Dreamsʼ).

One idea that struck me while contemplating the monkey cover is that less than a year from then, another album with a monkey cover and a monkey theme would begin making the rounds — Pixiesʼ Doolittle — and that, for all it is worth, this was officially the time when Talking Heads would pass the crown of the worldʼs zaniest pop band to Black Francis and his own bass-wielding lady. Once formed, the analogy becomes so strong that it is almost impossible not to compare the pleasant, but tired and unfocused jamming of Naked to the freshness, rawness, and new brand of wit and humor offered by Pixies. And if Talking Heads could indeed be dubbed «the Beatles of New Wave», then this is where they inevitably lose out — even if they may have very well suspected that Naked could become their last album, they did not find it in them to make it their Abbey Road (at best, it became a self-completed Let It Be... a Let It Be... Naked!! har har har). Admittedly, it could have been much worse — they could have been lured away into generic synth-pop, for instance — but still, this is no way for a great band to end its career.

Talking Heads: True Stories

TALKING HEADS: TRUE STORIES (1986)

1) Love For Sale; 2) Puzzlinʼ Evidence; 3) Hey Now; 4) Papa Legba; 5) Wild, Wild Life; 6) Radio Head; 7) Dream Operator; 8) People Like Us; 9) City Of Dreams.

General verdict: Not bad as far as ordinary pop-rock albums go, but way too unfocused and old-fashioned for us to understand why it had to have the name "Talking Heads" attached to it.

For all my immense respect towards David Byrne as a multi-faceted artist, and for all my undying admiration towards his body language in Stop Making Sense, I could never be bothered to follow all of his creative activities — here implying that I have not seen the movie True Stories, nor have I heard Sounds From True Stories, the actual soundtrack from the movie, split between Byrneʼs solo takes on some of the songs and incidental music from other artists. This does bring me closer to lots and lots of people, I believe, who only bought True Stories, the album — Talking Headsʼ bona fide sequel to the previous yearʼs Little Creatures — and experienced it without any contextual knowledge. And really, there is nothing about the sound of the album that suggests it should have been a soundtrack. It just sounds like a Talking Heads album — and not a very good Talking Heads album at that.

All right, admittedly, not a very bad Talking Heads album, either. Common consensus pegs True Stories as the absolute nadir of the bandʼs existence; but considering the fact that it came out in 1986, the counter-artistic nightmare year for so many different artists par excellence, it actually seems amazing to me that it does not suffer from too much overproduction, too many cheap synthesizer sounds, too seriously watered-down lyrics, or too many outside cooks (hacks) stirring the pot. If anything, where most of 1986ʼs failures suffered for sounding way too big, the chief flaw of True Stories is its being so frustratingly humble. Little Creatures began the process of transforming the band into a «normal» pop-rock outfit; True Stories finishes the job by making it sound like a simplistic pop-rock outfit.

Indeed, once the somewhat drunk-sounding one-two-three-four count-in has announced ʽLove For Saleʼ (whose very title, taken in the context of 1986, is easier associated with the likes of Bon Jovi than Billie Holiday), more than one listener will probably be taken aback by the flat, loud drum sound and the arena-rock style guitar riff: is this truly a Talking Heads song, or have we accidentally put on another experimental record by KISS? The lyrics seem to be Byrnish all right, but the music owes much more to conventional, old-school blues-rock than anything this band was ever about. The song is not devoid of meaning or catchiness, but the music is just a bit too dumb for the satire to catch on, and Byrneʼs vocals are not quite as effective in the context of this brawny, pub-rockish spirit.

In fact, if you concentrate on stuff like this opener or the albumʼs best known song, ʽWild Wild Lifeʼ, you might begin to wonder if Mr. Byrne has not taken a subtle and twisted liking to the popularity of the hedonistic hair metal scene — twisted, because neither of the songs count as open celebrations of the reckless lifestyle, but both deal with it one way or another. It is as if The Byrne City Dweller, having come to terms with the reality of modern family life, suddenly decided to be The Man, went out to town, got drunk at the local bar and began fraternizing with the local bikers, to the best of his abilities. In fur pyjamas. Itʼs weird all right, but it is not nearly as exciting (and certainly nowhere near as funny) as the description might make it sound.

Turn elsewhere and you will see that another new influence is ska — ʽPuzzling Evidenceʼ and ʽRadio Headʼ have exchanged the funky basslines of old for fast, furious, and monotonous head­bobbing, though I will be the first to admit that both tunes are fun to bob your head to, and the organ / guitar / backing vocals groove of ʽPuzzling Evidenceʼ is pumped out with all the energy and the discipline that we came to expect from the band. ʽRadio Headʼ is also quite sympathetic, though for a song that allegedly gave the name to one of the most depressingly existentialist bands of the late 20th century it is quite surprisingly cheerful and good-natured.

The worst thing about it all, really, is that all of these songs are... just okay. They do not feature any particularly horrendous lapses of taste, and they still prominently show Byrneʼs knack for pop hooks. They are simply not too interesting, and not too exciting compared to everything that the band did before. Had True Stories been recorded by any B-level pop-rock outfit in the 2000s or 2010s, the album might easily have been the highlight of their career. But since this is Talking Heads, all I can say when I listen to something like ʽPapa Legbaʼ is "these are the same guys that did ʽI Zimbraʼ and ʽSlippery Peopleʼ"? Compared to those musical exorcisms, ʽPapa Legbaʼ is a smooth, inoffensive piece of lightweight exotica, with almost elevator muzak-level guitar playing and a vocal performance that could be seen appropriate for the Fifties.

Speaking of the Fifties, though, I might have something there, what with the most sentimental and heartfelt song on the album, ʽPeople Like Usʼ, beginning with the line "in 1950 when I was born, papa couldnʼt afford to buy us much...". In fact, the bandʼs entire line of evolution ever since the triumph of Stop Making Sense had them oddly growing backwards — where in 1977 they were recording stuff that may have been at least four or five years ahead of its time, in 1986 they were making music that might have belonged in the early Seventies or late Sixties. Old hard rock riffs, simple ska patterns, countryfied slide guitars, even a prom night waltz-type serenade (ʽDream Operatorʼ) — and none of this would be too bad if there wasnʼt a certain aura of laziness around it all. Most of the songs just go on for too long, even if not a single one actually goes over six minutes. This is... unpleasant.

In the end, I think, we have no choice but to return to the reality of True Stories as a soundtrack: allegedly, at least some of the songs work better in the context of Byrneʼs movie, where their relative simplicity and old-fashioned nature should theoretically make a fun contrast with the absurdism and sarcasm of the plot and cinematography. But then we remain with the big question of why the hell Byrne had to force the entire band to release this set as a Talking Heads album rather than just stay contented with the movie soundtrack. Knowing David, this could have been an intentional move to piss off his annoying bandmates — or even an intentional move to give the bandʼs reputation a solid shot in the foot. But since the truth is usually boring, it is more likely that nobody just gave that much of a damn; and by 1986, the other band members, despite all their hard feelings for David, were so used to following his directions that they could not have come up with a better plan on their own anyway.

Talking Heads: Little Creatures

TALKING HEADS: LITTLE CREATURES (1985)

1) And She Was; 2) Give Me Back My Name; 3) Creatures Of Love; 4) The Lady Donʼt Mind; 5) Perfect World; 6) Stay Up Late; 7) Walk It Down; 8) Television Man; 9) Road To Nowhere.

General verdict: Talking Heads in their "We donʼt want no syncopation" phase — perfectly acceptable for those wanting to taste a dish of pop hooks sautéed in David Byrneʼs artistic philosophy.

And here it comes — the infamous «sellout pop» album. Actually, it is funny that some people still vaguely remember Little Creatures as the point where Talking Heads «sold out», because the album charted lower than Speaking In Tongues (though it did sell more copies in the long run), and none of its singles were as successful as ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ. The entire sell-out idea seems to be mainly rooted in the bandʼs change of style: all of a sudden, the Heads began playing in a much more old-fashioned, conventional, 4/4-based manner, cutting down on all the funkiness and all the electropop and embracing a pop-rock sound that brought their sound much closer to, say, The Pretenders than to, say, Afrika Bambaataa.

It is highly unlikely, however, that this unpredictable change in style had anything to do with the bandʼs commercialism — if anything, this particular sound was drastically out of vogue in 1985, the year of ʽCareless Whisperʼ and ʽLike A Virginʼ. Far more probable is that David simply wanted to try something different for a change, and for a band as consistently innovative and rule-changing as Talking Heads, «radically different» could only mean «old-fashioned». Not nearly as old-fashioned as is sometimes suggested by people who drop the word ʽAmericanaʼ in their description of the album — a few touches of the steel guitar now and there should not mislead you into thinking that Talking Heads are transforming here into The Band or anything. But old-fashioned enough in the sense that the band dares to ask you the question — so can you still be into Talking Heads if we intentionally remove ourselves from the cutting edge?

Actually, the entire message of Little Creatures had already been previewed two years earlier: the album picks up from exactly the same spot where we were left with ʽThis Must Be The Placeʼ. That particular song had both introduced and perfected the tightly relaxed, smoothly rhythmic, joyfully catchy pop vibe that is all over this album — merely one more, and still quite significant, chapter in the life of that one quirky protagonist of the Talking Heads story whom we might call The Byrne City Dweller. As The BCD grows older, and as life eventually forces him to adapt to his uncomfortable and stressful environment, and as he finds more and more ways to cope with himself and everyday life, so does the music become less stressful and paranoid: surprising as it is, Little Creatures is a perfectly organic evolution of the bandʼs sound, and, most importantly, the songs here sound just as sincere as everything that came before. They even begin making more sense — fortunately, just enough for us to be able to understand what is going on, without diving into banalities and platitudes.

In a way, there are certain lyrical and attitude similarities between Little Creatures and the bandʼs debut — back in 1977, the music may have already been funky and energetic, but the baby BCD had only just come into life, and he was looking at this world with a mix of awkwardness, terror, amazement, and sympathy. As time went by, amazement and sympathy were generally taking a back seat to awkwardness and terror, culminating in Fear Of Music. But then something happened to the BCD — he may have started psychotherapy sessions, or gulping down Prozac, or settling down and trying to raise a family, or all of those things at once — and eventually he reclaimed some of that lost innocence, including the ability to perceive not just the grossness and danger, but also the charm and beauty of some of lifeʼs creations. "A woman made a man / A man he made a house / And when they lay together / Little creatures all come out". (If you need a more direct argument, then how about the na-na-naʼs of ʽThe Book I Readʼ making a surprise return as the ooh-ooh-oohʼs of ʽPerfect Worldʼ?).

If there is a problem with all that, it is mainly that we do not see too many signs of Talking Heads, the band, covering the flanks of The Byrne City Dweller. Most of the songs were written by David alone, and although the band members dutifully recorded it all, little about these particular arrangements says that they could not have been made without the participation of Jerry, Tina, or Chris. For sure, as soon as something like, say, the opening chords of ʽWalk It Downʼ makes a punchbag out of you, you can see how it is the same band that did both ʽPsycho Killerʼ and ʽMemories Canʼt Waitʼ — but, truth be told, even ʽWalk It Downʼ is not that dependent on the particular chemistry of this particular rhythm section any more. Nor can we hope to rely on the kindness of strangers: great musicians like Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell have been replaced by Eric Weissberg, a banjo and steel guitar player who is mainly familiar to bluegrass fans (hence the entire «Americana» thing, even though he is only playing on two tracks and neither of them sounds too «American-ish»).

But mistreating your bandmates is one thing and coming up with bad music is quite another. As it happens, Little Creatures is fully consistent and cohesive — in fact, it could be such a natural and perfect conclusion to the story of The Byrne City Dweller that it almost feels as if the band would go on to outlive its proper age by three years. ʽCreatures Of Loveʼ is the new anthem of our protagonist, followed up by ʽStay Up Lateʼ — two songs that show an odd new interest in procreation and baby care (I first suspected that they might have something to do with Byrneʼs own family, but apparently his daughter was only born in 1989) — and both are charming little pop vignettes that make a lot of sense. Nobody but David can sing the line "we are creatures of love" in a way that suggests "hey you know what? Iʼve been thinking about it lately, and it just came to me that, like, you know, we are not just these strange, smelly, grotesque upright-walking flesh lumps... we, like, have this LOVE inside! Isnʼt that, like, the coolest thing ever? Okay, Iʼm off to write a song about this before I have another panic attack!"

To be sure, there are still occasional small panic attacks scattered throughout this record — most obviously, on ʽTelevision Manʼ, an almost epic-length saga of split personalities that may be the single best example of the «television terror» genre since Bowieʼs ʽTVC15ʼ. But with such a drastic reduction of funkiness and such strong elements of vocal melodicity in the chorus, the music becomes more Kinks than Talking Heads (I could totally see Ray Davies doing a cover of this song — heck, of most of the songs on this album). But when the album is over, it is not them that you will remember the best — more likely, it will be the mysteriously ecstatic hooks of ʽAnd She Wasʼ and ʽThe Lady Donʼt Mindʼ, featuring The Byrne City Dweller in lovestruck mode and his personal muse "drifting through the backyard", "rising up above the earth", "jumping out of the window", and "floating by whenever she wants to"... well, then again, there is really nothing surprising about The BCD developing a butterfly fetish.

If you think that there is an overabundance of romantic notes on the album, you are probably right, but it has been such a long time since Talking Heads wrote proper love songs in significant numbers that surely they would be entitled to indulging themselves — after all, such an important aspect should have never been left in the exclusive ownership of Tom Tom Club — and whatʼs wrong with that, Iʼd like to know, if the hooks are so insane? ʽAnd She Wasʼ is all about ringing guitars and soft bouncy bass rhythms, building up a sunny, dizzy, feather-light atmosphere of a sunny day. ʽThe Lady Donʼt Mindʼ is all about suspenseful string bends and mild jungle-style percussion, cooking up the feel of a slightly thrilling, but harmless mystery. Both songs were excellent choices for singles, even if neither of them charted too high — this musical style was completely out of touch with the trends of 1985.

It wouldnʼt really be Talking Heads, though, if they had not given the album the proverbially ambiguous finale — and so ʽRoad To Nowhereʼ is, on one hand, an anthemic celebratory conclu­sion to the whole experience, with a soul choir to amplify the message and a loud, triumphant galloping rhythm to carry you away into the sunset of the future; on the other hand, "weʼre on a road to nowhere, come on inside" does not exactly feel like the most positive message out there. Half call to action, half bitter satire, it still continues the new trend of ending the record on an emotionally optimistic note, but is more in line with ʽThe Big Countryʼ than ʽThis Must Be The Placeʼ. In other words, behind all the lightness and poppiness of Little Creatures we still see the same old fears and cynical judgements — all you have to do is bring along a slightly more power­ful magnifying glass this time.

I dare say that if you are only into Talking Heads for the musical innovations that they brought into this life, Little Creatures will be a deadly dull experience; not even the strong pop hooks in these songs will save their face for you. But for those who were interested not only in the evolution of the funky melodies as they gradually built up towards the ultimate marriage of the ancient and the modern on Remain In Light, but also in the evolution of David Byrneʼs artistic storytelling, Little Creatures may be just as fun a chapter in that story as any that preceded it. Even if you happen to disagree with his assessments of love and sex. (And I hope you disagree with his assessments of love and sex). 

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense

TALKING HEADS: STOP MAKING SENSE (1984)

1) Psycho Killer; 2) Heaven; 3) Thank You For Sending Me An Angel; 4) Found A Job; 5) Slippery People; 6) Burning Down The House; 7) Life During Wartime; 8) Making Flippy Floppy; 9) Swamp; 10) What A Day That Was; 11) This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody); 12) Once In A Lifetime; 13) Genius Of Love; 14) Girlfriend Is Better; 15) Take Me To The River; 16) Crosseyed And Painless.

General verdict: Excellent live album, but listening to it without watching the movie makes about as much sense (no pun intended) as reading the collected edition of Bob Dylanʼs lyrics on paper.

If you have never listened to Stop Making Sense as the second live album by Talking Heads, this is not a tragedy — it will never hope to surpass the monumentality of The Name Of This Band. If you have never watched Stop Making Sense, the concert movie, what you need to do right now, this very instance, is drop everything you are doing (and at this moment, you are obviously wasting your time reading this review anyway, rather than pulling people out of burning buildings or something) and go watch it immediately, because, well, chances are that you might not truly understand anything about Talking Heads, New Wave, intelligent dance music, or post-1975 artistic values in general until you have been properly worked over by the movie.

I am not exactly sure if the two shows in question from which Jonathan Demme drew the material for his movie, held in December ʼ83 at one of the theaters in Hollywood, were typical of that particular tour — there must have been specific elements, conceived exclusively for the cameras; however, they were definitely a lot different from all previous concerts by the band, with a lot more emphasis on the visual / choreographic side of the business. Even on the 1980 tour, when the Heads had first padded themselves with tons of side musicians, the main reason for that was to be able to reproduce all the growing complexities on their studio albums. On Stop Making Sense, the swarms of side musicians continue to almost overwhelm the main core of the four band members — but this seems to be much more skewed toward a general effect of fussiness and camaraderie: the movie shows very well how all those extra people were needed on stage not just (and not so much) for their playing, but rather for their kick-ass behavior.

Above everything else, though, this is David Byrneʼs show: every single song, with the natural exception of ʽGenius Of Loveʼ, belongs to him 100% of the time, even when he is neither singing nor playing. Speaking of playing, he has dropped his guitar for more than half of the songs on here — now that there are so many side players, he really does not need it that much — in favor of jumping, running, mugging, rolling around, playing games with Big Suits or Electric Lamps, setting up slideshows, you name it. This is Rock Theater in a way that you probably have not seen since the heyday of Alice Cooper and Peter Gabrielʼs Genesis, only with an updated and mdernized sensitivity that (unlike elements of Aliceʼs and Peterʼs shows) has not aged one day even thirty-five years later: rewatching the movie recently, I was struck by how not a single frame, not a single movement by anybody in the picture could make me go «oh, thatʼs a bit of Eightiesʼ corniness out there». Was the movie ahead of its time? Probably not; but no other experience has managed to catch up with it in all the time thatʼs elapsed since then.

As good as the audio soundtrack is, it does not convey the almost perversely manipulated excite­ment that grows and grows as you watch the show slowly unfold before your eyes. Life begins from an egg hatched inside Byrneʼs boombox as he gives you the most minimalistic performance of ʽPsycho Killerʼ ever (and no audio track can give you the spazz moves he makes at the end of the song, as if being pummelled over and over again by an invisible enemy). Life goes on as Tina joins him on bass for an almost equally stripped down rendition of ʽHeavenʼ; life gallops on as Frantz hops onstage for a short, but rousing take on ʽThank You For Sending Me An Angelʼ; life becomes a familiar guitar-weaving pattern as Jerry joins David for ʽFound A Jobʼ (again, far from the best rendition aurally — the coda is much too short and simplified — but impossible to look away); and then life ascends to properly climactic heights on the next three songs. The backup singers, Ednah Holt and Lynn Mabry, grinning demonically and playing air guitar like a mirror image to David on ʽSlippery Peopleʼ; David and Alex Weir running on the spot and tearing up the strings on ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ; and, of course, Byrneʼs aerobics in (and particularly the little snake dance on the second verse of) ʽLife During Wartimeʼ — these are all iconic images that cannot be erased from oneʼs memory.

Many people correctly latched on to Byrne in their original assessments of the movie, but not always for the right reason — Roger Ebert, for instance, simply commented on his "physical presence", saying that "he seems so happy to be alive and making music", a description that would be more apt for, I dunno, Freddie Mercury. Most of the time Byrne is, of course, giving us his paranoid act — always true to himself, this is a show about the challenges of the modern world and the common manʼs reaction / adaptation to those challenges. He plays a whole number of different personas, from the shitless-scared jogger on ʽLife During Wartimeʼ to the confused intellectual on ʽOnce In A Lifetimeʼ to the clueless socialite on ʽGirlfriend Is Betterʼ, he might even become a little Hitlerish on ʽSwampʼ, but it always comes down to the same issue — what the hell am I doing here, and how the hell am I supposed to carry on? Every single gesture, every single vocal inflection redirect you to that question; and although you could certainly say that David is very happy to be able to ask it, Stop Making Sense is, well, about a life that has pretty much stopped making sense, rather than about a happy and understandable kind of life. Which is, perhaps, one more reason why the movie — paradoxically — makes even more sense today than it did back in the movie theaters in mid-ʼ84.

A few words, I suppose, should still be said about the music. The new, 2.1 expanded version of Talking Heads (as opposed to the 2.0 version of the Remain In Light tour) still sounds brilliant: no matter how much emphasis is placed on the visuals, the Heads could allow nothing less than absolute perfect discipline from all the players. But since the lionʼs share of the playlist falls on material from Speaking In Tongues (six out of its nine songs are performed), this means that the chief strength of classic live Heads, the insane math-rockish interplay between David and Jerry, is largely eliminated — that teeny bit of guitar fencing at the end of ʽFound A Jobʼ is but a whiffy reminiscence of how it used to be. Meanwhile, the place of Belew is occupied by Alex Weir, a swell guy having a lot of fun and looking like heʼs been best friends with the Heads forever, but not quite the futuristic sonic wizard of Adrianʼs caliber. This might be one of the reasons why Remain In Light is so snubbed with this setlist — they still manage to end the show with a convincing take on ʽCrosseyed And Painlessʼ, but on the whole, the band was hardly up to the challenge (additionally, it is possible that the ambitiously cosmic aspirations of Remain In Light were a bit outside of Davidʼs scope of intentions for that evening).

That said, as is usual for the Heads, almost every single performance of the Speaking In Tongues songs is superior to the studio original — more energy, more sass, more sweat, and, yes, the visuals: ʽGirlfriend Is Betterʼ takes on a whole new life with Byrne turning on autopilot in the Big Suit, and ʽThis Must Be The Placeʼ features the tenderest handling of an electric lamp ever known to mankind, worthy of being enshrined together with Charlie Chaplinʼs globe. The lone­some inclusion from Byrneʼs solo Catherine Wheel soundtrack, ʽWhat A Day That Wasʼ, also fits right in with its frenetic pace and paranoid verse / joyful chorus contrast.

The only thing that never truly fits in — and I am pretty sure they all knew it from the start — is the Tom Tom Club spotlight with ʽGenius Of Loveʼ. Not because the song itself is not very good (itʼs okay, I got used to it), and not because Frantzʼs invocations of James Brown still sound silly (itʼs just a couple of bars), and not even because Tinaʼs dancing moves are comically gross (at one point, she is squatting as if suffering from severe IBS), but mainly just because it has no place in the middle of Byrneʼs overriding, egotistical, despotic, but fully cohesive and coherent artistic vision. It certainly gives him enough time to change into the Big Suit, but I am not sure if we really needed such a strong reminder of why Talking Headsʼ music is genius, while Tom Tom Club is an endearing one-time joke. It is a bit of a mood breaker, and I am always tempted to skip the track, no matter if itʼs audio only or the movie itself.

By the time we get to end the main part of the show with ʽTake Me To The Riverʼ, the song has truly earned its cleansing power — now it has been turned into the last act of David Byrneʼs personal confession, a prayer for salvation and redemption whose appearance in the Talking Heads catalogue now seems like an act of Providence rather than some strange, unexplainable accident. The expanded band, with all the African-American performers on stage, provide an authentic gospel-soul glossing, but they do not transform the song back into an Al Green cover, because Byrne is still wearing the Big Suit on his shoulders and on his vocal cords; he is still being the same old nervous big city dweller, to whom the act of being taken out to the river and dropped in the water means something radically different from what it used to mean to the black son of an Arkansan sharecropper. Whatever it is, it is the perfect conclusion to a perfect show where so many talented men and women, each with his or her own identity, come together to complete the fractured personality of one creative genius.

In conclusion, I can only repeat that, to me, Stop Making Sense (the movie) symbolizes every­thing that can be exciting, involving, and deeply meaningful about modern art (a little ironic, of course, to be calling a thirty-five year old performance «modern art», but I guess weʼre stuck with the term for good now anyway). The best thing about it is that you can refrain from overthinking and just dance like crazy along to everything that is going on, giving in to the excitement without a second thought; or you can actually sit and watch, sucking in each golden frame of the movie and coming up with your own interpretation of what it is all supposed to mean — interpretation that will make sense, no matter how much the title tries to convince you of the opposite. The only thing that truly stopped making sense to me ever since I got the DVD (or, at least, permanent YouTube access) was listening to the audio album without the accompanying picture... although I do believe that I got most of the frames memorized anyway.

Talking Heads: Speaking In Tongues

TALKING HEADS: SPEAKING IN TONGUES (1983)

1) Burning Down The House; 2) Making Flippy Floppy; 3) Girlfriend Is Better (For Alex Alex); 4) Slippery People; 5) I Get Wild / Wild Gravity; 6) Swamp; 7) Moon Rocks; 8) Pull Up The Roots; 9) This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody).

General verdict: A gentle, but satisfactory, funk-poppy slide off the heights of Remain In Light — fortunately, still crazy after all these years.

Whether or not Talking Heads, under certain circumstances, could have made another Remain In Light — or, more accurately, an album that would dare go even further than Remain In Light, thrusting the gates to another musical dimension wide open — is an open question. What they did instead was take a break and focus on their solo projects — and when they got back together, things would never be the same again. The level-A magic was gone; the big bird flew the coop.

Not that Speaking In Tongues is a bad record, by any means. Taken on a song-by-song basis, it is perfectly consistent and can still be safely counted as one of the best pop albums of 1983. But its ambitions were thoroughly different. Without Eno, without Belew, featuring a large variety of first-rate funk and electropop session players, Speaking In Tongues is no longer a musical link between archaic primal forces and futuristic projections, as was Remain In Light, but rather something that I would simply call Intelligent Dance Music, if only that term werenʼt hijacked by a specific brand of electronic artists a decade later.

One could chalk this up to the personal influence of David Byrne and his monopolizing the group, but unless we are willing to include footage from Stop Making Sense as evidence of that, one could equally well say that there is plenty of Tom Tom Club influence in Speaking In Tongues just as well. A better supposition would be that the band had a «burnout» of sorts, or, even more simple, realized that Remain In Light took things too far in terms of complexity — after all, they would not want to take half of Africa with them on tour every single time they would have to promote new material. So Speaking In Tongues leaves in and further develops all the funk themes they had introduced, but largely abandons the costly overdubs, the imposing atmospheres, and the cosmic implications of its predecessor. This is their «lightest» album since 1978, and, all the «why donʼt you do something greater than great?» quibbles aside, they had certainly earned a right to make a light album.

They certainly earned a right for some serious commercial success as well: ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ sounds very much like an intentional, hard-pressed, clenched-teeth effort to make the charts, and make them they did — the only time that the band made it into the US Top 10. The song has a party groove to it: only the most devoted fan would distinguish some of Davidʼs trademark paranoia in the lyrics, vocals, and musical arrangement. The rest would just take the song as an irresistible invitation to dance — even despite the oddly ululating acoustic fade-in that opens the song on a weird, suspenseful note before it bursts into an all-out dance craze. There is no other song in the bandʼs catalog that comes as close to being an unbridled celebration of the joie de vivre, something that is even reflected in the live performance on Stop Making Sense, with every single player just goofing off without a second thought.

However, anyone caught off guard with that opening explosion and terrified that the Heads might have crudely sold out to cheap «poptimism» will most likely be reassured as soon as ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ fades out, giving way to more familiar territory — social awkwardness, fear of life, perception of everything around as potential problems, and, at the end of it all, a faint glimpse of possible salvation: this time, openly stated in the lyrics and reinforced by the music. ʽBurning Down The Houseʼ is a song for everybody; everything else on Speaking In Tongues is for registered members of the David Byrne Society.

Return to familiar spiritual / atmospheric territory does not mean, however, that Speaking In Tongues is a complete musical retread to the rhythms and textures of 1977–78. For one thing, the Heads are no longer a minimalist four-piece band: keyboards, intermittently played by all four members as well as guest musicians, are by now an absolutely integral part of the sound, though (fortunately, I would say) they are still somewhat conservatively relegated to the function of offering a countermelody or ambient decorations. For another thing, the rhythms and riffs are very strongly influenced by the contemporary electropop scene — everything from Prince to late-era Funkadelic — and this results in a slight simplification of the classic Heads sound, with the Byrne/Harrison guitar interplay no longer serving as the focal point; even on such relatively uncluttered tracks as ʽMoon Rocksʼ it is more about the rhythmic groove itself than the melodic effect generated by the interweaving of rhythmic grooves.

Nevertheless, the songwriting talent and the work ethics of the band are still very much in place. Even if the songs are, on the whole, less complex and more accessible, they are all catchy, odd, and true to the bandʼs spirit; also, even as the music gets simpler, Byrneʼs lyrics grow more and more cryptic as time goes by, so each specific song is best described in question form — is ʽMaking Flippy Floppyʼ about personality disorders? is ʽGirlfriend Is Betterʼ discussing woman problems or is it about delirium? is ʽSlippery Peopleʼ a political rant or is it about hallucinogens? these are all stimulating things to think about as you give in to all of these songsʼ rhythmic temptations and slowly begin to realize that Tinaʼs bass may have surreptitiously crept in to occupy the place of top-crucial-instrument throughout the record (Tom Tom Club strikes again!).

Eventually, you might find yourself in danger of feeling that all the songs kind of gravitate towards each other and cluster in a single monotonous mess, as it may have happened on More Songs. To prevent this, the album breaks up the proceedings with ʽSwampʼ, an unexpected piece of 4/4 blues-rock that could be construed as somewhat of a tribute to John Lee Hooker and all them other murky dark blues guys from long ago ("now let me tell you a story / the devil has a plan..." is a pretty telling commencement) — except that, somehow, it also manages to sound like a Teutonic war march (particularly in the "hi hi hi hi hi" chorus), so... more like John Lee Hitler to me (I always half-expect to see Byrne sporting a moustache for his Stop Making Sense performance of this number). Of course, it only becomes creepy when you begin overthinking it, but the advantage of Talking Heads is that their music deserves overthinking more often than not.

Even the discomfort of ʽSwampʼ, however, does not properly purge the feeling that the band has somewhat sold out to the good times — not that thereʼs anything inherently wrong with this, not if the required optimistic coda to the album is represented by a song as charming as ʽThis Must Be The Placeʼ (with a slight feel of humble embarrassment, subtitled ʽNaive Melodyʼ). This one shows David giving in to sentimentalism, which in the past was either suppressed or played out ironically (ʽThe Big Countryʼ); but he redeems himself with a vocal flow that smoothly goes from energetically-passionate to soft croon, and with one of the most unforgettably delivered opening lines in the history of sentimental pop ("home is where I want to be" — uttered in the precise intonation of somebody who has just returned from a long, tiresome journey to the end of this funky world). Arguably, the beauty of this song can be best understood in the context of Stop Making Sense (the lamp! the lamp!), but here, too, it forms a wonderfully placating conclusion to the overall herky-jerky experience — a far cry from the unresolved doom-laden suspense of ʽThe Overloadʼ that left us cliff-hanginʼ at the end of Remain In Light.

In the end, there is this sneaky lingerinʼ feeling that on Speaking In Tongues, the Heads are, every now and then, dipping into somebody elseʼs tongue — playing too much of the general game rather than focusing strictly on their own one. Intentionally or not, this is their first record where they are more trend-followers than trend-setters. But sooner or later, it happens to every­body anyway, and classy, intelligent, entertaining trend-following is a cool and rare art in itself, so here you are with another respectable chapter in the history of a band which, arguably, had already earned twice as much respect as most of the competition. 

Talking Heads: The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads

TALKING HEADS: THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS TALKING HEADS (1977-1981; 1982)

CD I: 1) New Feeling; 2) A Clean Break (Let's Work); 3) Don't Worry About The Government; 4) Pulled Up; 5) Psycho Killer; 6) Who Is It?; 7) The Book I Read; 8) The Big Country; 9) I'm Not In Love; 10) The Girls Want To Be With The Girls; 11) Electricity (Drugs); 12) Found A Job; 13) Mind; 14) Artists Only; 15) Stay Hungry; 16) Air; 17) Love > Building On Fire; 18) Memories (Can't Wait); 19) Heaven.
CD 2: 1) Psycho Killer; 2) Warning Sign; 3) Stay Hungry; 4) Cities; 5) I Zimbra; 6) Drugs (Electricity); 7) Once In A Lifetime; 8) Animals; 9) Houses In Motion; 10) Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On); 11) Crosseyed And Painless; 12) Life During Wartime; 13) Take Me To The River; 14) The Great Curve.

General verdict: Hard work, adventurous innovation, boundless energy, constant evolution — you know you have yourself the gold standard for live albums when you somehow manage to combine all four.

More than any other classic live album aside from, perhaps, The Whoʼs Live At Leeds, this chronological retrospective of the evolution of Talking Headsʼ live sound from 1977 to 1980 is a living monument to the benefits of the CD format. Originally released in 1982 as a (relatively) humble double LP that could have easily fitted onto a single laser disc, twenty-two years later The Name Of This Band was lovingly doubled in length, clocking in now at an impressive one hundred and fifty-six minutes and containing live versions of approximately two-thirds of the band's entire catalog up to Remain In Light — preserving the correct chronological order, and only including duplicate recordings for a small handful of tunes, many of which had evolved almost beyond recognition anyway (ʽPsycho Killerʼ).

Was this behemoth mutation necessary, or was it merely another case of archival overkill? I have no idea how to answer this objectively; all I remember from my own experience is that the very first notes of ʽNew Feelingʼ got me hooked so much that I munched through the entire 156 minutes in one sitting, and that The Name Of This Band is still one of the very few live albums from post-1975 artists for which I have a very, very special (if no longer exactly ʽnewʼ) feeling. Not only that, but it is also one of the very few live albums from post-1975 artists that might arguably be better than the respective studio records — more accurately, I think that, if I had to choose, I would have easily traded ʼ77 and More Songs for the first of these two CDs, and that the only reason why Fear Of Music and Remain In Light would have to remain is Brian Enoʼs production, some aspects of which understandably could not be recaptured on stage.

One thing that we often overlook, if not forget, about Talking Heads is that behind all the show­manship, all the weirdness and eccentricity of their art used to lie an insane amount of harsh self-discipline — it is totally not a coincidence that out of all the New Wave acts, it was the Heads that were selected by Robert Fripp, the hardest working man in progressive rock, as the role model for the Eightiesʼ reinvention of King Crimson. Their early formative years at CBGB were spent not in merely trying to find and define their artistic niche, but, perhaps even more im­portantly, in turning themselves into a perfectly churning four-headed machine of funk-pop-a-roll that could find no equals or even similars. Like, the first thing you obviously notice about David Byrne when watching the bandʼs early videos are his jerky antics — the second thing is that behind these antics, the man actually manages to be complex, precise, and super-expressive on his guitar, even when singing and dancing at the same time. Without all that grueling, exhausting disciplinary action there would be no Remain In Light — whose polyrhythmic perfection could only be achieved after years and years of training.

What is even more astonishing, though, is that the results of this training are even clearer felt on the band's live recordings than in the studio. Of course, the tracks that constitute The Name Of... were culled from a variety of shows, ranging from small gigs broadcast live in radio studios before a very small audience to much larger venues (culminating in a major performance in New Yorkʼs Central Park) — but even if we cannot guarantee that every night in the bandʼs history of live performing sounded like that, what difference does it make? All the way through, Tinaʼs bass typically sounds louder, grumblier, heavier than in the studio; Chrisʼ drums sound imbued with more energy and precision than in the studio; and the Byrne/Harrison guitar interplay seems to be locked in even more complex and well-timed grooves than in the studio. Admittedly, this might be an illusion that is primarily caused by technical aspects — differences automatically stemming from production techniques employed in different environments. But I am sure that it also has everything to do with the same old dilemma that, for instance, used to transform The Who into two absolutely different bands: one hunting for a more melodic, polished, nuanced sound in the studio, another one going for an all-out kick-ass energy ball in the concert venue.

In the New Wave era, this differentiation was largely abandoned, as one half of the new artists simply sought to reproduce their studio sound onstage as carefully as possible (which makes live albums by bands such as The Cure fairly redundant, since it was technically impossible to transfer all their studio complexities to the stage), while the other half, on the contrary, were bent on reproducing the wildness of their live shows in the studio (which is why punk rock usually works better live). Talking Heads were one of the very few new acts who remembered the old perks of having yourself a studio avatar vs. a live avatar — all the more charming for one of the most innovative / progressive acts of the decade — and this is why hearing all your old favorites in these live versions, instead of being predictably boring, ends up breathing new life in them. (For the record, I never even began to properly differentiate between all the different-but-similar numbers on More Songs before being introduced to their counterparts here).

Speaking in terms of highlights and lowlights makes no sense for an album like this, so I will just mention a couple of special moments to illustrate my general points. For one thing, the scary intro to ʽMemories (Can't Wait)ʼ is made just a bit scarier when Harrison brings in more diversity to his lead guitar countermelody, playing scragglier, jaggier, angrier chords butting against Davidʼs steady rhythm playing (for some reason, in this arrangement the songʼs main melody reminds me even more of one of Iommiʼs riffs from Black Sabbathʼs ʽWar Pigsʼ — coincidence or not, this is the main source of the creepy vibe). The slightly extended intro to ʽPsycho Killerʼ, with David and Jerry playing in different tonalities, the former doing his chunky-funky thing and the latter weaving in a bit of a blues-pop guitar melody, adds delicious tension as you wait with bated breath for them to «come together» for the main twin riff. And the crescendo coda to ʽFound A Jobʼ, with both guitar players, perfectly aware of each other's presence, laying on extra volume and intensity with every next few bars, just makes it all so much more real than the studio version, where the idea of mutual competition was nowhere near as well-pronounced.

Special mention should be made of ʽA Clean Break (Letʼs Work)ʼ, one of the bandʼs best early songs which, for some unknown reason, never made it onto any of the studio albums — a true funk-pop thunderstorm and an excellent showcase for Byrne/Harrison «guitar dialogue» tech­niques, with Byrne, as usual, providing most of the funk and Jerry compensating for this with poppy licks and occasional blues-rock explosions, all taken at top speed and seasoned with some more trademark vocal hysterics (although the song is so fun that it is hardly possible to take David's "in a minute I'll wash that love away!" close to serious).

The second disc, whose tracks were all taken from the Remain In Light tour, is a much different affair: this was the «deluxe» version of Talking Heads, the expanded ultra-special show with a grand entourage, adding backing vocalists (Nona Hendryx in particular), extra keyboard and percussion players, and, most significantly, Adrian Belew on third (or second, depending on whether Byrne was playing or clowning) guitar. This partially justifies the inclusion of alternate versions of some of the songs — the coda to ʽPsycho Killerʼ, for instance, is completely trans­formed under Adrianʼs maniacal influence as he single-handedly turns the song into ʽPsycho Arcade Game Playerʼ; but it also makes possible to render sufficient justice to all those Remain In Light masterpieces like ʽThe Great Curveʼ that would have been nowhere near as impressive without Adrian or the extra singers supplying the kaleidoscope of vocal melodies and counter­melodies. Unfortunately, the second disc is still just a tad less effective than the first one because there is less space left for improvisation and individual touches — nevertheless, Belew never plays the same solo twice, and the disclaimer is really only valid for Remain In Light material that occupies less than half of the discʼs running time. (In contrast, this live version of ʽLife During Wartimeʼ kicks the shit out of the studio original — in no small part due to Bernie Worrellʼs added clavinet solos that complement the songʼs paranoid mood admirably).

Regardless, one of the great aspects of this retrospective is that it is... well, a retrospective. Some of those «watch-me-through-the-years» spectacles end up relatively disappointing, like Bruce Springsteenʼs Live 1975–85, where you see the artist, while consistently retaining the same level of energy and professionalism, gradually succumb to more and more arena-rock clichés. Here, on the contrary, you see Talking Heads grow and develop from a local club phenomenon to a massive force of nature without ever losing a single inch of adequacy — the bigger they get, the harder they work at justifying that bigness. The distance traveled from the humble-subtle opening of ʽNew Feelingʼ to the grand mother-Earth finale of ʽTake Me To The Riverʼ and ʽThe Great Curveʼ is enormous, but it feels so natural and logical that you will probably not even sense the transition if you listen to the whole record in one go. All in all, this is the single greatest story of musical evolution from the «Silver Age» of rock music unfurling here before your ears over two and a half hours, and, needless to add, one of the greatest live albums of all time.

Talking Heads: Remain In Light

TALKING HEADS: REMAIN IN LIGHT (1980)
1) Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On); 2) Crosseyed And Painless; 3) The Great Curve; 4) Once In A Lifetime; 5) Houses In Motion; 6) Seen And Not Seen; 7) Listening Wind; 8) The Overload.

General verdict: One little paranoid Scotsman in the lap of so many terrifying African gods.

[This is a slightly revised version of an older review in the abandoned "Important Album Series", from June 26, 2016].

Even after the major critical success of Fear Of Music, Talking Heads had little chance of turning into a household name — in fact, this would not properly happen until they'd record ʻBurning Down The Houseʼ in 1983, a track that made all the difference because, finally, ordinary people could dance to it. However, the first three albums firmly established them as not only one of America's most unique and innovative bands, but also one of its finest New Wave-themed European exports. Instead of reggae, which somehow turned into a primary point of attraction for so many European New Wave acts, they had put their money on R&B and funk —capitalizing particularly on the nervous / paranoid associations of the funk groove, so that it could be flawlessly integrated with David Byrne's psychotype. The peak of this approach was reached on Fear Of Music, an album that for most bands, would be impossible to top — in fact, most bands would probably not even set themselves such a goal, and instead just stay forever happy after having mastered such an intricate formula.

The one big advantage of Talking Heads was that they happened to be interested in music as much as they were interested in art — that is, from a perspective where we do not simply regard «music» as a subcategory of «art», but instead associate the former with technique and texture, and the latter with symbolic / philosophical meaning. The first three albums by the Heads featured some very fine music, but most of it was very much overridden with Byrne's personality: when you think of those records, probably the first thing that comes to mind is his vivid character impersonation rather than, for instance, the (actually no less impressive) polyrhythmic guitar interplay between Byrne and Harrison. The band did have a unique sound, and it was never against making it more and more unique by transcending its «rockist» limitations, but it would not be too inaccurate to state that most listeners probably wondered what that plural marker was really doing at the end of Talking Heads.

At the same time, interest in «world music» (understood as «predominantly white European or American pop/rock musicians appropriating elements of other musical traditions full-scale — for artistic, humanitarian, and educational needs only, no personal financial gain whatsoever!») seemed to be on the rise among all sorts of audiences, largely because it was high time music did some more cross-breeding to prevent from stagnating — and Talking Heads, who had already once dabbled seriously and successfully in crossing real African (rather than Afro-American) music with rock on ʻI Zimbraʼ, were more than happy to explore that interest. For one thing, at a time when some of the band members had begun expressing discontent about Byrne's vision monopolizing the band's career, it gave them all a chance to democratically expand beyond a Byrnocentric world — by making The Byrne Identity merely one of the integral elements of the process, maybe a bit more equal than the others, but not crucially so. Byrne himself had made the first step by working with Brian Eno on My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, where he had learned to tame and restrain his personality, and so, by mid-1980, the stage was set for one of the strongest concentrations of talent ever assembled in one place.

Indeed, for the Remain In Light sessions, as well as for the ensuing tour to promote the album, Talking Heads actually had to become The Talking Head Consortium, adding: Brian Eno (who, in addition to retaining his production duties, also played select bass and keyboard parts); Adrian Belew (crazyass lead guitar beyond the capacities/imagination of either Byrne or Harrison); Jon Hassell (trumpets, horns, solid knowledge of world music theory); Robert Palmer and José Rossy (percussion); and the illustrious Nona Hendryx (backing vocals). Some of the songs actually give the impression of a much larger ensemble of musicians, but that is due largely to Eno's masterful overdubbing (although for the ensuing tour they still managed to get away with a nine-piece ensemble in order to reproduce the album in most, if not all, its sonic density).

In their basic form, the tracks were originally laid down in Nassau (Compass Point Studios), not too far away from Jamaica and Haiti where Chris and Tina spent a holiday socializing with voodoo and reggae people while Harrison, at the same time, was producing an album for Nona Hendryx and Byrne was recording My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts with Eno — the same kind of merging collective profit with individual pleasure that preceded the Sgt. Pepper sessions in late 1966/early 1967, to use a perfectly appropriate reference. However, the album turned out to be even more of an «assembly» thing than Sgt. Pepper: Byrne's vocals were added separately, as were Nona's and, finally, Hassell's brass overdubs. What you are hearing on the final product is not at all the sound of a tight, well-drilled band (which the Heads certainly were), but the results of a tremendously complex cut-and-paste procedure, which makes it all the more astonishing how they were ultimately capable of transferring it all to the stage with perfect mutual coordination (Talking Heads Live In Rome is a terrific DVD from the tour that is every bit as worth seeing as is the far better known Stop Making Sense — at least, for the regular fan). In any case, Eno's contribution to the record is every bit as important as George Martin's was for Sgt. Pepper — not a single subsequent Heads album would boast such a multi-layered sound.

Once released, the album was an immediate critical hit, but it did not sell that much compared to the band's previous output: ʻOnce In A Lifetimeʼ charted fairly high in Europe, but not in the homeland, and the LP showed only a very modest rise in the charts compared to Fear Of Music — apparently, the strange new sounds were still way too incomprehensible (and disturbing) for the sitting majority and far too complex for the dancing minority to make a wave-like impact. It is also a matter of debate precisely how influential this record has been: it did not exactly invent «worldbeat» as such, and it still had too much of that strong Talking Head essence in it to be properly imitable — probably the closest followers would be Discipline-era King Crimson with the same Adrian Belew manning one of the guitars, but King Crimson never went for that African / Haitian voodooistic angle, and vocals in general were nowhere near as important for KC as they were for the Heads here. But one thing is for certain: Remain In Light was perceived as a major event in music when it appeared, and its classic status has not become even faintly dimmed with the passing of time.

The very first thing you might feel, as the poly-pulse of ʻBorn Under Punchesʼ is fully established, is that proverbial Jungle Sensation — the song's multiple guitar and keyboard bits symbolizing all the friendly (and sometimes not so friendly) tongueless creatures of said Jungle and the tribal woos and hoos representing its humanoid inhabitants. Of course, it is not a real jungle: with Byrne at the wheel, it is more of an allegory for an Urban Jungle, where tribal Africa is taken as an allegory for the general hustle-bustle of life in a perfectly modern industrialized society. But at the same time, nothing about Remain In Light is truly «chaotic»: all the polyrhythms, all the multi-layered vocal overdubs are strictly coordinated and disciplined — in fact, Byrne's singing / talking / screaming is pretty much the only element that keeps on disrupting the rigorous patterns, and so the whole album (or, at least, most of it) can be viewed as the solitary hysterical madness of an individual helplessly caught in the grinding cogs of perfectly tuned machines (not exactly an artistic breakthrough for these guys). Although, admittedly, they are tuned so perfectly that getting caught up in them might sound like an exciting proposal.

The first three tracks here are probably the single most thrilling, tension-mounting sequence in the band's entire catalog: ʻBorn Under Punchesʼ sets up The Jungle, ʻCrosseyed And Painlessʼ introduces The Panic, and finally ʻThe Great Curveʼ descends into utter ferocious emotional hell. The first of the songs is cleverly subtitled ʻThe Heat Goes Onʼ, where «heat» may (and should) refer at once to jungle heat and government heat — and where the weird, lilting, sounding-like-nothing-else-at-the-time guitar solos by Adrian Belew are somewhere in the middle between the sounds of merrily, but mechanically chirping birds in the trees and the sounds of phones, ticker tapes, alarm sirens, automatons, and whatever other analog and digital contraptions have been invented by cruel humanity to confuse and enslave the poor human.

But despite the colorful, bedazzling sound, it is still merely an introduction to the "sharp as a knife" sound of ʻCrosseyed And Painlessʼ, where Tina's bass actually does sound like a cutting knife, making one careful, but brutal incision after another — again, the whole thing is either a relentless run-through-the-jungle or a grinding, never-ending musical lobotomy performed on the protagonist as he is "still waiting, still waiting", but there's really nothing to wait for because it's already over, to the mock-lullaby of "there was a line, there was a formula..." sounding like the equivalent of a good dose of sleeping gas to help ease the pain. This stuff works on so many levels of perception that it is almost scary.

What is scarier is that next is ʻThe Great Curveʼ, which makes ʻCrosseyed And Painlessʼ sound like a kiddie dance round the mulberry bush by comparison. The call-and-response dialog between the ringing guitar line and the answering bass is worth gold alone (the dark and the light? two sides of the coin? the optimist and the pessimist?), but when you have all those different vocal melodies gradually laid on top of them, one by one (useless trivia detail — I always heard one of those not as "night must fall, dark-ER, dark-ER", but rather as "night must fall, dark pearl, dark pearl!", which sounds way cooler to me), the result is a kind of sonic bliss / sonic nightmare that must be heard to be believed — and it actually worked live as well (but maybe not nearly as effective when stripped of Eno's supernatural production)! And in between that, you get some of the craziest solos ever devised by Adrian Belew — yet, believe it or not, they sound like moments of respite, allowing you to actually catch your breath between all those rounds of vocal basketball. And Jon Hassell's brass overdubs? And "the world moves on a woman's hips"? This is one of the greatest songs ever written, and maybe the best ever use of vocal polyphony in a rock setting, period. This is not really a Talking Heads song — it's a Mother Nature song (feat. Talking Heads), capturing Mother in one of her not-too-pretty tantrum states.

It is, consequently, not surprising that I have always found the other songs of the album allocated on the other side of ʽThe Great Curveʼ, right past the peak; nothing surpasses the fury of the opening three, and, in fact, despite the obvious greatness of ʻOnce In A Lifetimeʼ, this is clearly the first (and only) song here that fully returns us to the well-accustomed Talking Heads idiom: a somewhat tame funk rhythm guitar instead of the maddening polyrhythms, exclusively male vocals, and a lead singer once again at the forefront of things. I always used to think that ʻOnce In A Lifetimeʼ did not really mix too well with the rest of the album, that it might have been inserted there just because somebody felt a need to have a «proper» Talking Heads single for commercial purposes — well, I mean, it probably was. Which does not make it any less great as a great Talking Heads song (but not a Mother Nature song this time) — and has anybody ever come up with a more friendly, optimistic, philosophically ambiguous song on the subject of ʻNobody Knows You When You're Down And Outʼ, anyway? I don't really think so.

The second side of the album almost inevitably pales in comparison, just because all of the strategy has already been laid out on Side A, and most of the brutal energy has been expended. ʻHouses In Motionʼ does one more good job of building up some «jungle-style paranoia» with clever parallel alignment of reggae and funk guitars, but then we largely get mellow — first, with arguably the record's single weakest number, ʻSeen And Not Seenʼ (atmospheric, but too much keyboard wiggling from Eno, too many talking vocals and not enough hooks), then with the album's only formal «ballad», ʻListening Windʼ, and finally, with its most «Goth-style», «Joy-Division-like» coda, ʻThe Overloadʼ. It is clear why none of these three songs were performed in concert: compared to the lively, if scary, «dance» numbers of Side A, these are slow, subtle, a nasty smoky hangover after the devilish party, something, perhaps, to be played only after a non-stop 12-hour rave party to calm down the nerves of a hysterical crowd. Their charm will probably become more obvious with time, but they do serve their proper function: after playing out the storm, you have to say a few words about the calm, even if it is only relative — ʻThe Overloadʼ, with Eno's pulsating synths and whirring engines and industrial hums, does sound like the equipment could blow apart at any minute, yet it builds up its tension and takes it away with it in a fade-out, rather than ending things with a nuclear blast or something.

Because, you see, Remain In Light is not the announcement of a catastrophe — like most of the band's output, it is a warning, and no other Talking Heads album ends on a more alarming note than Remain In Light. (Is it a coincidence that the band's commercial fortunes only really improved when they began ending their records with shiny optimistic instead of depressing tunes, like ʻThis Must Be The Placeʼ?).

On the whole, the best thing that can be said about the album is that it works equally well as a collection of hooky individual songs (the choruses, the riffs, the polyrhythms — there are so many earworms here, you could catch yourself a boatload of earfish with them) and as a cohesive conceptual thematic suite with a rational internal structure: nervous-hysterical build-up, post-nervous depressed wind-down, and a perfect synthesis of native African stylistics and the Western civilization pop tradition in terms of execution, and by «perfect» I mean one that sounds smooth and fluent and has a reasonable intellectual symbolic interpretation at the same time. You can simply enjoy the hell out of it, or you can subject it to musicological analysis, you can decode and explain its philosophy, and it will all make perfect sense.

Of course, few albums are perfect, and although there is no «filler» as such on Remain In Light (every song has its purpose and loyally fulfills it), every once in a while a song might overstay its welcome, or get a little too lost in atmospheric beeps and bleeps to remember about preserving the hookline. The grooves on Side A are so tight, powerful, and mesmerizing that each of them could go on for 15 minutes and I wouldn't have a care in the world; but ʻThe Overloadʼ should probably have been at least a minute shorter, and I have already indicated that ʻSeen And Not Seenʼ is too much special effects and not enough melody (could it actually be left over from the sessions for My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts? It rather sounds like it belongs on that album, what with all the isolated keyboard pings and spoken vocals). But on the other hand, it is precisely because of all the risks, experiments, and outside collaborators that Remain In Light avoids the common flaws of most other Heads albums —such as they used to be when most of More Songs About Buildings And Food, for instance, used to sound like one interminable macro-song. This is definitely different.

I do believe that the album is a stunning achievement in the history of modern music — easily the best record of 1980 and, who knows, a good contender even for best album of a decade that had barely started when it came out. It really pointed out a brand new direction that very few (if any) other artists would manage to follow successfully, just because it takes a great deal of time, talent, and tact to properly re-integrate modern musical genres with their «ancient» predecessors. Most importantly, the biggest flaw of «world music» is that it tends to be very pretentious, commanding you to revere and admire it just because it liberally acknowledges the musical merits of our cultural ancestors and faraway brothers. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not. The genius of Talking Heads here is that they were the first to show that «world music» can be perfectly relevant and vital in a completely modern setting — not a museum artefact, made bright and shiny by means of neon lights and computer-assisted simulations, but a real artistic weapon that can be used to describe the conflicting, turublent emotions of a contemporary, urbanized, Western (or Eastern, or Northern, or Southern, etc.) human being. Too often, musical synthesis is being carried out just for the sake of synthesizing — as in, we get bored, we put together something that has never been put together before (remember Monty Python's Society For Putting Things On Top Of Other Things?). Remain In Light avoids that trap and, in doing so, remains every bit as vital, inspiring, and relevant today as it was when it first came out.