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Talking Heads

Started by MoonDust, August 11, 2016, 10:18:50 AM

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MoonDust

I may be a slowly developing fan. Maybe they'll be the next band to listen to all the time after the Fall.

This is also a thread a bit about songs and band names you didn't know belonged to each other.

The only songs by Talking Heads I knew were Once In a Lifetime and Burning Down the House - although the latter I only found out was Talking Heads a few months ago[nb]Embarrassingly I always thought that Tom Jones did the original to that.[/nb] - but last weekend I was at a house gathering and one guy kept playing Talking Heads. And I was like "I've never heard any Talking Heads other than Once In a Lifetime and Burning Down the House" and he was like "Psycho Killer? Road to Nowhere? You must have heard them!" I shook my head.

Then he played them, and wham! I was like "Ooooooh yeah! Those songs!" Of course I'd heard them before, I just never knew they were by Talking Heads. In fact they were those kind of songs where I'd never bothered to find out who does them, but yet they're so instantly recognisable.

I might go out of my way to listen to them more. Any album recommendations?

Also, he was playing Road to Nowhere on youtube so I now see where Bazhor's avatar comes from. I always thought the man looked familiar..

Absorb the anus burn

I adore Talking Heads... I've been a fan for twenty-five years and can always return to them and find something new.

There's not much that hasn't been said about them..... But for me it's their groove, coupled with the boundless intelligence and creativity that make them such a compelling band.

Album order of brilliance.

Remain In Light. (1980)
Fear Of Music. (1979)
77 (1977 obviously)
More Songs About Buildings And Food. (1978)
Speaking In Tongues. (1983)

Little Creatures, True Stories & Naked are all weaker albums, but contain a handful of brilliant songs (Road To Nowhere, And She Was, Puzzling Evidence, Wild Wild Life, Nothing But Flowers, Blind......)

Add to that, two of the best live albums ever (The Name Of This Band & Stop Making Sense) and you have a GREAT back catalogue.

If you are going to stick to individual songs, the following will make you a fan for life.

Cities.
The Great Curve.
Don't Worry About The Government.
I Zimbra.
Crosseyed & Painless.
Love Comes To A Building On Fire.
This Must Be The Place.
The Book I Read.
Found A Job.
No Compassion.
Slippery People (live from Stop Making Sense)
Pulled Up.
Stay Hungry.
Houses In Motion.


Some personal favourites: Paper[nb]used by Chris Morris in On The Hour.[/nb]; Seen And Not Seen; Drugs; Animals; Last Week, This Week, Carefree; Pull Up The Roots; A Clean Break.

phantom_power

I would agree with all of that but add the following songs as ones to check out:

Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town
Air
Heaven

Jockice

David Byne's my homeboy. And of course he wrote !GIRLFRIEND! Is better.

greenman

I would say go for one of the live albums first, gives you a wider spread of material without directly replicating it.

The Name of the Band is Talking Heads - More towards the punkier and sonically experimental side of the band with Adrian Belew on guitar for the second disk.

Stop Making Sense - Porbbaly best experienced as the concert film(even if you typically dislike them its worth it) although the albums great as well, more of a P-funk like side to the material with more Bernie Worrall focus.

Artie Fufkin

I am obsessed with 77 & More Songs.....

grassbath

The bit at the end of the last chorus of 'Found a Job' where Byrne says 'hit it' and the quality of the mix shifts as the band launch into the coda groove is a contender for the greatest moment in all music.

Absorb the anus burn

Quote from: grassbath on August 11, 2016, 11:18:34 AM
The bit at the end of the last chorus of 'Found a Job' where Byrne says 'hit it' and the quality of the mix shifts as the band launch into the coda groove is a contender for the greatest moment in all music.

'Their Stockhausen moment' as Byrne describes it on the SMS commentary track.

buttgammon

Quote from: grassbath on August 11, 2016, 11:18:34 AM
The bit at the end of the last chorus of 'Found a Job' where Byrne says 'hit it' and the quality of the mix shifts as the band launch into the coda groove is a contender for the greatest moment in all music.

I absolutely love that bit too, it's magnificent.

It's hard to put into words how much I adore Talking Heads - they have an astonishing back catalogue that never seems to get old or boring no matter how many times you play it. With Remain in Light especially, there always seems to be something that I've never noticed before on every single listen. As ATAB has already suggested, the first five albums plus the live ones are all absolutely brilliant.

jobotic

Quote from: grassbath on August 11, 2016, 11:18:34 AM
The bit at the end of the last chorus of 'Found a Job' where Byrne says 'hit it' and the quality of the mix shifts as the band launch into the coda groove is a contender for the greatest moment in all music.

Yep. Been saying that for years to anyone who'll listen (no one). I was a teenager when I got into them and became obsessed. Some of Byrne's solo stuff is very good too.

The Big Country is a favourite of mine. And Memories Can't Wait. And Mind. And and and...

Love the video to Road To Nowhere.

DrGreggles

Love Talking Heads.
If you become a fan your life will be better.

Norton Canes

The only Talking Heads album I have is Little Creatures, which I gather is the first one that didn't receive near-universal acclaim. However I think it's fantastic, nine amazing tracks. I guess I should catch up with their 'classic' albums. 

Dr Syntax Head

An incredible band. Speaking in tongues is easily one of my favourite albums. I remember as a kid seeing thew video for Blind (with the wrench spitting saliva) and it totally messed with my innocent little mind. I still love that song.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: grassbath on August 11, 2016, 11:18:34 AM
The bit at the end of the last chorus of 'Found a Job' where Byrne says 'hit it' and the quality of the mix shifts as the band launch into the coda groove is a contender for the greatest moment in all music.

Based on what you said here, i've listened to that song for the first time today. And you are correct, the coda is something special for sure

the science eel

Nice to read all the love for that last bit of 'Found A Job'. I love it too.

There's a similar thing towards the end of 'The Good Thing', just after Byrne's "watch me walk!" when it gets muscular for 20 seconds. Or the squealing guitar solo towards the end of 'Air', which contrasts beautifully with the backing vocals. Great bits.

Good band, but some horrible shit too, mostly when Byrne-the-geek is to the fore. The live version of 'Psycho Killer' with DB and a boombox is awful, a real patience-tester. And 'Once in a Lifetime' is similarly irritating after a while.

Fear of Music is a stellar album. Nothing but good stuff all the way, there.

greenman

The best related stuff besides the Heads themselves for me would be Eno and Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by some way, I'd say theres even a good argument that surpasses Remain in Light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k20qAQtse_k

Absorb the anus burn

Quote from: greenman on August 11, 2016, 06:41:13 PM
The best related stuff besides the Heads themselves for me would be Eno and Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by some way, I'd say theres even a good argument that surpasses Remain in Light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k20qAQtse_k

Bush Of Ghosts is really good, but I actually prefer Byrne's 'Catherine Wheel' from 1981 or thereabouts - Talking Heads used to play a few songs from The Catherine Wheel live - 'What A Day That Was' features in 'Stop Making Sense', as Does 'Big Business' with 'I Zimbra' in the extended cut of the film.... Talking Heads also did 'My Big Hands Fall Through The Cracks' and 'Big Blue Plymouth Eyes Wide Open' live a few times between '82 and '84, although they were never given an official release.

Absorb the anus burn

Quote from: the science eel on August 11, 2016, 05:03:22 PM
Nice to read all the love for that last bit of 'Found A Job'. I love it too.

There's a similar thing towards the end of 'The Good Thing', just after Byrne's "watch me walk!" when it gets muscular for 20 seconds. Or the squealing guitar solo towards the end of 'Air', which contrasts beautifully with the backing vocals. Great bits.

'Stay Hungry' does something similar - after Byrne grunts four times there is an instrumental passage that lasts until "here's that rhythm again" - like Found A Job and The Good Thing, it sounds as if the band are flying..... Brian Eno was certainly the perfect producer for them.

Bhazor

#19
I'll second the recommendation for The Name of This Band as the greatest live album ever made. The only downside is it kind of ruined the original album versions of several tracks for me. The joys of the album versions for Houses in Motion and Born Under Punches in paticular are just lost to me forever. I'd even go as far as to say listen to the albums first just so you can reexperience them with the live versions.

Personally I got into the band because of a MST3K binge. Watching multiple episodes in a row and reading through the satelite of love annotations for each really showed how much of a fanboy Kevin Murphy was and so I decided to see what that was all about.

I had always dismissed them as just a novelty band because of Psycho Killer, a song which I still hate, but after hearing Born Under Punches I had to concede that yeah they're a bit of alright.

Bhazor

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on August 11, 2016, 06:58:53 PM
'Stay Hungry' does something similar - after Byrne grunts four times there is an instrumental passage that lasts until "here's that rhythm again" - like Found A Job and The Good Thing, it sounds as if the band are flying..... Brian Eno was certainly the perfect producer for them.

Listening to the album on shuffle I remember thinking that they'd messed up and accidently added the intro of the next song to the end of it. I ended up sitting there going through the album listings looking for a song called "Shoulder blades".

hewantstolurkatad

I bought TNOTBITA when I was 14 for the following reasons:
1. I lived in an area that never stocked anything beyond what you'd find in your local Tesco, yet it was there
2. I didn't want a repeat of the Very Best of The Smith where about 60% of each album is just dumped onto the CD and Im buying the individual albums for one or two songs each with all the others being familiar. So I actively spurned the Very Best of Talking Heads that came out around the same time
3. The fact I never heard of this album implies that they're probably not especially good live performances, so when I get the albums, it'll be like hearing them all for the first time again


then it turned out almost every f*cking song is far better on TNOTBITA than they were on the original albums.

Serge

'Remain In Light' is the one for me. I've played that bugger to death. Opening track, 'Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)' is one of my favourite tracks of all time. But the whole album is magnificent. I love the bonus tracks on the remastered version as well, especially 'Right Start', where you can see the genesis of 'Once In A Lifetime' right before your, er, ears.

Danger Man

Save 50 minutes of your life by only listening to Mr. Jones when you get to the Naked LP. The other tracks aren't worth the effort.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Danger Man on August 11, 2016, 07:57:47 PM
Save 50 minutes of your life by only listening to Mr. Jones when you get to the Naked LP. The other tracks aren't worth the effort.

I really like Blind. It's a cheerful litle jam

Bhazor

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on August 11, 2016, 08:32:25 PM
I really like Blind. It's a cheerful litle jam...

...about police brutality.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Bhazor on August 11, 2016, 08:43:22 PM
...about police brutality.

Music not the lyrics of course.

the science eel

Oh, and True Stories is pretty good. Underrated, for sure.

the science eel

and 'Television Man' is great when they go into the big thumping jam halfway through. I mean, I don't normally like that kind of thing but it's sort of addictive the way they do it. Less pencil-neck, more cool 80s ROCK BAND

MoonDust

Cheers for the recommendations folks! And apologies for ignoring the thread all day. My office has had no internet and I've just got back to my flat!