It's tough separating Talking Heads' lyrics from their music. After all, they were famous for their innovative use of rhythm, and brought African and other musical ideas from around the world long before Paul Simon and other pop stars got there. But even as they became global-music stars, slipping polyr
In a way, Talking Heads’ eighth and final album, ‘Naked,’ was a reaction to Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland,’ which introduced world music to mainstream audiences in 1986. Then again, Talking Heads got there before Simon, incorporating African rhythms into their songs way back in 1980’s landmark ‘Remain in Light.’ But after 1983’s ‘Speaking in Tongues,’ which featured similar world-music junctures, and the massive world tour that followed, the group began scaling back.
Talking Heads were one of the strangest groups to come out of the punk and New Wave movements of the mid-to-late '70s, and not just because frontman David Byrne was a total oddball. In an era where fans were forced to take sides among the classic roc
Talking Heads' jagged, quirky brand of NYC new-wave/punk had been a fixture of the emerging CBGB scene during the mid-70s. But their studio debut, the now 35-year-old '77,' brought their idiosyncratic tunes to a wider audience, influencing an entire generation of brainy misfit punks.
'Remain in Light'
Talking Heads were ready to dispel the idea in 1980 that they were David Byrne and "three other musicians." Not only was their album a more collaborative effort, they wanted to drive the point home by having all four members appear on the 'Remain in Light' album cover.
David Byrne has explored his fascination with the female voice in the past with the 'Here Lies Love' project, which featured a number of women rockers. But this time around he's settled on just one female muse to join him on record for a new project.
Interesting attire and visuals were Talking Heads trademarks, and the band was anything but predictable when it came to recording outside material. This way of doing things seems to have rubbed off on Florence + the Machine.
David Byrne of the Talking Heads turns 60 years old today (May 14, 2012), making this the perfect time to revisit the band's transcendent rendition of 'Once in a Lifetime' from the 1984 concert film 'Stop Making Sense.'
Some musicians who have been in the business for over 30 years aren't very comfortable talking about their past and prefer to only look forward. Chris Frantz, drummer for Talking Heads, is not one of them. In a recent interview to promote a new DVD, 'Chronology,' Frantz talked about his band's early days at CBGB.
Writing about music, they say, is like dancing about architecture. But the 33 1/3 book series does it more gracefully than most, looking at some of the most important albums of the rock era with a collection of short tomes that can offer everything from an oral history of the records to highly personal reflections on the music's meaning. This week, the 1979 Talking Heads album 'Fear of Music' gets the 33 1/3 treatment, courtesy of author Jonathan Lethem.
