No. 382: More Songs About Buildings and Food

Band: Talking Heads
Album: More Songs About Buildings and Food
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: The band's second album featured help by Brian Eno and moved the band into a more mature territory. Out of the classic punk rock roots, the Heads became more of an art-rock circumstance and further defined their sound. It's an underrated gem.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: There isn't a lot of accessibility on this album and "More Songs About Buildings and Food" almost defines quirkiness.
Best song: The hit single from the album -- and one of the band's signature songs -- is their cover of Al Green's "Take Me To The River." It is, in a word, genius.
Worst song: You know, there really isn't a bad song on the album.
Is it awesome?: Yes.

While Talking Heads' best work is usually cited for David Byrne's inventiveness or Brian Eno's production, but one of the main reasons "More Songs About Buildings and Food" is great is the band's rhythm section. Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz were the members of the group who brought funk's backbeat to the band and introduced Byrne to the possibilities therein.

The album is littered with such rhythms. "Found a Job" has the quick dance beat of James Brown's earlier work, while "Take Me To The River" has the slow burn of the original. "The Girls Want to Be with the Girls" has the moving bassline of Bootsy while "With Our Love" is severely influenced by the Meters.

(Famously, "Burning Down the House" gets its name from an old P-Funk chant -- "burn the house down!" -- Frantz would shout during the band's jams.)

Byrne's songwriting takes on new features on the album. The lyrics reflect realities ("Warning Sign"), social commentary ("Found a Job") and conceptual pieces ("Artists Only"). The best-written song on the album is the album closer, "The Big Country," wherein Byrne looks at the flyover with a slide guitar and country beat. The song's lyrics ("I say, I wouldn't live there if you paid me./I couldn't live like that, no siree!") reflect Byrne's ability to write a sarcastic song with tinges of coastal truth. While simple-sounding, the song is layered and complex.

Of course, the juxtaposition of Byrne's real world reality (see the album's title) over the band's staccato funk is the band's signature and Brian Eno helped the band realize this on "More Songs About Buildings and Food." While the band would expand the sound, "More Songs About Buildings and Food" is the signature Heads album.

No. 345: Stop Making Sense

Band: The Talking Heads
Album: Stop Making Sense
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: If there is a better concert film, I'd like to see it. The Talking Heads' off-kilter and strange brand of New Wave permeates the album, as it is mostly a set of the band's best hits.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: Two problems. The first, of course, is the greatest hits conundrum. We've examined this a million times. The other inherent problem is this ranking is probably based on the movie more than the album. That's all good and well, but because an Oscar-winner directed a movies doesn't mean the album is great. I mean, it is, but still, one does not equal the other.
Best song: Considering it's largely a greatest hits compilation, just about every song is great. Since it's the Heads, I'll repeat my love for "Crosseyed and Painless."
Worst song: "Slippery People" isn't great.
Is it awesome?: Of course.

"Hi. I've got a tape I want to play you."

So begins "Stop Making Sense." The band's sublime Jonathan Demme-directed concert film is a series of mostly extended shots of the band playing in front of crowds during the band's 1983 tour. The stage is stark, as David Byrne didn't want many distractions for the filming.

The film, of course, is famous for the "big suit" Byrne wears at the end of the film. An homage to Japanese Nogaku theater styles, the suit was become a symbol of the band's quirkiness. It's classic Byrne, as a bizarre look at the world around them.

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I can't go on too much about the record. I love the Talking Heads, so my feeling on the record is that it's great. "Life During Wartime" is a strange, impassioned funk song. "Once in a Lifetime" and "Crosseyed and Painless" are played flawlessly to the original versions. "Take Me To The River" is perfectly in Byrne's range. The tape effect of the band in "Psycho Killer" is probably the album's best portion, as Byrne wrestles the sound from the tape.

But, again, it's sort of a greatest hits compilation. The audience is potted down for most of the recording and the band is as tight as ever.

No. 290: Talking Heads: 77

Band: The Talking Heads
Album: Talking Heads: 77
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: The Talking Heads' debut album is nothing if not unique. David Byrne's off-kilter lyrics and singing plays perfectly with the band's dance-ish beats.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: The album is raw. The production doesn't always do the songs justice. Also, the Heads' better work was their later work, though this album remains great.
Best song: "Psycho Killer" and it's not really close.
Worst song: "The Book I Read" isn't great.
Is it awesome?: Yes, if a little raw.

I'd like to posit a theory: The New Wave era was the most diverse era in American and British pop music. CBGB's, specifically, housed tons of bands with totally different sounds, all of whom had the luck to come through New York at about the same time.

Think about it. The Talking Heads' irony, Blondie's reggae disco, the Police's reggae rock, the Cars synth pop, the Ramones' punk, Television's art rock and Patti Smith's spoken word, uh, nonsense stuff.

The Heads' proto-nerd rock (which we'll examine later in the week with Weezer's first record) was something to behold. While the band stretched itself out in its later years, "Talking Heads: 77" is raw. It's disjointed and it attempts to be jointed. It's sincere while not expecting to be.

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I know I can't really complain -- considering some of the work I've done around here -- but Rolling Stone's piece in their 500 list is nonsense. It only talks about how the Heads wore button-up shirts instead of punk rock t-shirts. Big whoop.

Style is important -- without it, David Bowie is just a dude -- but the Heads' brilliance is in their music.

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But, what of the songs?

There are three songs on the record that really draw me in. The first is, of course, "Don't Worry About the Government." I still cannot figure out if the song is a sarcastic look at political idealism or if it simply reflects that political idealism. It's the type of intelligent songwriting that made Rolling Stone once call the Heads "the great Ivy League hope of pop music. "

The slide guitar work on "No Compassion" reflects the oddness of the song. Following the influences of Camus, the song's viewpoint of a savage, non-empathetic world is the kind of thing English majors delight in discussing and conservatives delight in actually practicing. The song's ending stanza is reflective of what would become the next decade:

In a world where people have problems
In this world where decisions are a way of life
Other people's problems, they overwhelm my mind
They say compassion is a virtue, but I don't have the time

Oddly enough, the song's one hit, "Psycho Killer," has a similar and darker theme. As Byrne fmaously explained:

When I started writing this (I got help later), I imagined Alice Cooper doing a Randy Newman-type ballad. Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies.

The song's musical structure is strange, if only because the staccato guitar is played over Tina Weymouth's simple -- but effective -- bass line. Like the best Heads songs, it's danceable while being lyrically sinister. Byrne's singalong about murder is something to behold and likely the band's signature song.

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It's strange to contrast "Talking Heads: 77" with the band's more successful -- and, in my eyes, better -- work. Brian Eno had yet to get involved with the band. The band's sound was simpler in 1977. I, personally, prefer the fuller sound, but some of the songs on "Talking Heads: 77" are undeniably great.

No. 126: Remain In Light

Band: The Talking Heads
Album: Remain In Light
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: You know how Paul Simon kept trying to get African percussion into his music? This is what he was trying to do. The Talking Heads, always a band on the edge, got their best production out of producer Brian Eno. Swirling keyboards, danceable African beats, great Jerry Harrison (with guest Adrian Belew) guitar work and David Byrne's fantastic disjointed, paranoid vocals all occupy this record as the band hit its peak as a unit. Also, "Once In A Lifetime."
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: I'd have "Remain In Light" higher. I love this album.
Best song: It'd be easy to say "Once In A Lifetime," as it's one of the band's signature songs (and who can forget that video?), but "Crosseyed And Painless" is probably my favorite Heads song.
Worst song: No song is worst. They're all just different levels of great.
Is it awesome?: Absolutely.

I've mentioned what I consider to be greatest hits bands multiple times on this list and I imagine a lot of people would consider The Talking Heads a greatest hits band. These people are wrong, if only for this album. "Remain In Light" is one of my favorite albums because no album works different beats and rhytymns as seamlessly. Employing tons of new people into the band, including African drummers, the Talking Heads went from quirky New Wave band to amazing artists.

Each song is perfectly manicured with chants, percussion, horns and a full cadre of electronics. Eno's super hands-on production -- he is listed as a co-writer on several of "Remain In Light's" songs -- fits the album perfectly.

Byrne his hit high note as a lyricist, here, as well. His "almost sociopathic opening track, "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" weaves "Psycho Killer" in a more modern concept. The paranoid narrator freaks out as the swirling drums surround him. Eventually, the song evolves into a Parliament/Funkadelic-esque chant-along ("And the heat goes on/Where the hand has been" ), fitting considering one of the Heads' earliest influences was Parliament.

Of course, the classic "Once In A Lifetime" has Eno using a keyboard as a water theme in an instance where I've never heard an instrument make an unnatural sound seem so natural. Tina Weymouth's bass line starts and stops in the classic jerky Heads way that always seems to show that, yes, the Talking Heads are not a normal band. Even with the smooth water-sounding keyboards, this is still the Talking Heads.

Byrne's lyrics on "Once In A Lifetime" are among his best. An attack on suburbia and the American dream that Byrne would later explore in "True Stories," "Once In A Lifetime" decries the greed/conformity of the white picket lifestyle:

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

The water will always flow and Byrne will always attack the status quo. "Once In A Lifetime" attacks that conformity for conformity's sake by simply exposing it: "Same as it ever was."

(Also, the video. That man can dance.)

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My favorite Heads song is the second track on "Remain In Light," "Crosseyed And Painless." The breakneck pace of the song is based on a sixteenth notes of slightly overdriven guitar, slap bass, looped cowbell and Chris Frantz' drumming. The start/stop melody is an extension of the Heads' earlier work while incorporating a sweet hook showcasing Byrne's best singing on a Heads record.

Of course, this is all built around an almost rap-ish performance by Byrne throughout the rest of the song. He starts off gruffly, explaining his situation -- a man dealing with demons we couldn't imagine, apparently -- with "Lost my shape-trying to act casual!/Cant stop-i might end up in the hospital/I'm changing my shape-i feel like an accident/They're back!-to explain their experience."

He eventually turns the insanity outward in a Stephen Colbert-esque attack on propaganda, truth and the all-too-nebulous "facts." During one hook, Byrne sings "Facts cut a hole in us" while on the subsequent verse, "facts are useless in emergencies."

All this culminates in Byrne's laundry list of what facts can do, with his subtle explanation of relativism:

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts dont do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts don't stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape

Again, remember, this is all over a breakneck beat and Afro-Caribbean beats. Never has a philosophical judgment based on paranoia sounded so beautiful, fun and danceable. A wonderfully dark song, "Crosseyed And Painless" sounds anything but.
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Not for nothing, but I love "Remain In Light" so much that it made me buy a Phish album. I'd heard that Phish did "Remain In Light" as one of their "musical costumes" and had released it as one of their live records. Because I'm a sucker for cover records, I picked it up. And you know what? It doesn't totally suck. Phish don't wank along too much, but rather jam out on what is a fantastic cover. A record like "Remain In Light" is hard to translate live, I'm sure, as it was heavily produced, but Phish did it well.

But, it's that good. Even a band like Phish realized the greatness and didn't touch it. They played it very faithfully to the original.

It's a must-have. It paved the way for Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel's ventures into African music and they can't hold a candle to "Remain In Light."