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Talking Heads
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At the start of their career, Talking Heads were all nervous energy, detached emotion, and subdued minimalism. When they released their last album about 12 years later, the band had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop. Between their first album in 1977 and their last in 1988, Talking Heads became one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s, while managing to earn several pop hits. While some of their music can seem too self-consciously experimental, clever, and intellectual for its own good, at their best Talking Heads represent everything good about art-school punks. And they were literally art-school punks. Guitarist/vocalist David Byrne, drummer Chris Frantz, and bassist Tina Weymouth met at the Rhode Island School of Design in the early '70s; they decided to move to New York in 1974 to concentrate on making music. The next year, the band won a spot opening for the Ramones at the seminal New York punk club CBGB.
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I[T]’s only minutes before Talking Heads are about to take the stage for the first time in nearly 12 years. It’s for a press conference to discuss the recently re-released Stop Making Sense, their landmark concert film from 1984. Admittedly, the event is little more than four people sitting behind a table nattering away about days long since past. But one would expect the excitement level amongst the lethargic throng of media types to be significantly higher. After all, this isn’t a reunion of just any run-of-the-mill act.
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Talking Heads is a series of dramatic monologues written for BBC television by the acclaimed British playwright Alan Bennett. The two series were first broadcast in 1987 and 1998, respectively. The pieces have since been broadcast on BBC Radio, performed in live theatre, and included on the A-level and GCSE English Literature syllabus. They have ... played on PBS in the United States as part of its Masterpiece Theatre programme. In 2002, seven of the pieces were performed at the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles for a highly-praised engagement. In 2003, several of the monologues premiered in New York at the Minetta Theatre.
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By now, Talking Heads was more of an uneasy collaboration of convenience than a rock group. Byrne had directed a flop movie called True Stories which, of course, featured a soundtrack he'd written himself. Somehow he managed to round up the Heads to re-record the music and release it as a "new" album. The single "Wild Wild Life" got tons of airplay (a really annoying extended "party" mix is tacked on to the record as filler), and "Love For Sale" ... recaptures their grinding, hard-edged, guitar-oriented 70s sound. But that's the only good stuff. Elsewhere Byrne is only interested in super-saccharine bastardizations of exotic influences like Caribbean music ("Hey Now"), zydeco ("Radio Head") and country-western (the cheery "People Like Us") - or even worse, he tries to put across yet more of his soggy, slow-paced, smiley-faced anthemic ballads ("Dream Operator," with a 3/4 country beat; the stately, ultra-pretentious "City Of Dreams").
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Despite the accolades for Jonathan Demme’s artsy live document of the Talking Heads’ 1984 tour, Stop Making Sense, this New York quartet has never really been given its due as a live powerhouse. This under-appreciated 1982 live album should rewrite history for those unaware. It’s remained relatively obscure for just over two decades, never having been issued on CD, in large part because of the assumption that since Stop Making Sense was such a commercial hit, it therefore filled the demand for live Talking Heads material.
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The Talking Heads have expanded their eight studio albums with previously unreleased content for their release as DualDiscs. Due Oct. 4 via Rhino, the sets will be packaged together in a white molded plastic box that holds eight jewel cases. Each album has ... been remastered by Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison.
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