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Monday, November 3, 2008

TALKING HEADS


TALKING HEADS
1977 (1977)
REMASTER
320 KBPS

One of those debut albums that is clearly the beginning of a legacy, "Talking Heads '77" finds the band raw yet somehow fully formed. At its best, it is absolutely brilliant, somewhat schizophrenic new wave pop, at its worst, quite frankly, it's not much different.
Having met in art school in Rhode Island, David Byrne (guitar and vocals), Tina Weymouth (bass) and Chris Frantz (drums) relocated to New York to pursue their destiny as a band, eventually adding Jerry Harrison to the mix (keyboards and guitar) from Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers (highly recommended for anyone who enjoys this album). The band performed Byrne's songs-- a fractured, paranoid, intelligent and yet goofy sort of off-kilter pop-- the key to his music is that you can't readily identify when it was recorded, it has that magic timeless nature to it such that if you played this album for someone who had never heard it, they'd have no reason to assume it was recorded nearly thirty years ago. With Byrne's strained, frantic vocals and an unnervingly able and inventive rhythm section, the pieces all get superb readings.
Again, at its best it's brilliant schizophrenic pop-- from the deep groove of paranoid "Psycho Killer" to the mildly funky, building and paranoid "No Compassion" (the clearest pointer to what the future holds) to goofy-yet-serious chirping opener "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" or the seemingly endless imagery of "Don't Worry About the Government". The less intriguing tracks are pleasant enough ("New Feeling"), but often fairly unmemorable ("First Week/Last Week... Carefree") when compared to the rest of the record. They'd probably stand out on anyone else's album, but the better material on here raises the bar.
This reissue is really something to get ahold of-- using the dualdisc format, both sides are remastered and the DVD side is mixed in 5.1. Put simply, the series sounds superb-- crisp and clean and really fitting the timeless quality of the music. The CD side adds five bonus tracks-- the band's first single (recorded without Jerry Harrison), the absolutely superb "Love-->Building on Fire", a song that defies explanation and is among the best thing the band ever did, a handful of b-sides (largely unmemorable but nice to have) and early (again, pre-Jerry Harrison) recording "Sugar on My Tongue", originally released as part of the "Sand in the Vaseline". This final piece shows just how fully formed Byrne's songwriting and sound was, even early-- it captures all the manic energy and frantic sounds that make the band great and is a wortwhile addition. The DVD side offers one of the b-sides, another mix of "Uh-Oh..." and a couple live video clips.
Truthfully, the Talking Heads would go on to bigger and better things in the company of Brian Eno on their next three records, all pretty much flawless, but this one is essential. Recommended.

1. Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town
2. New Feeling
3. Tentative Decisions
4. Happy Day
5. Who Is It?
6. No Compassion
7. The Book I Read
8. Don't Worry About the Government
9. First Week/Last Week...Carefree
10. Psycho Killer
11. Pulled Up
Bonus tracks
12. Love = Building on Fire
13. I Wish You Wouldn't Say That
14. Psycho Killer
15. I Feel It in My Heart
16. Sugar on My Tongue

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