I think we can say that the Heads' cover brought massive attention to Al's original....and, that can never be a bad thing! I was one of those....and, no one's become a bigger Green fan than I over the decades!
I went through the biggest Eno/Talking Heads phase in my early 20s. I looove this album. I’m pretty sure I was able to score most of the Talking Heads albums via Columbia House. 😆
This one has one of my favorite opening tracks to an album ever.
Thank you for this Kevin! Sophomore releases usually get such a bad rap but this album is pure gold. Stop Making Sense also had such an impact on me. It was wacky and beautiful. That's where I saw Tina Weymouth in action for the first time and fell in love. "This Must Be the Place" was my wedding song (like so many people I'm sure.)
I sort of avoided Talking Heads when I was a young teenager, gradually making my way over to grunge instead (and then punk). I'm not sure why, but I never really revisited them with a deep dive. I do like some of their stuff, though, so maybe this is a kick in the pants to take another look.
My thought would be to start with '77 and this one, then skip ahead and enjoy Stop Making Sense (the concert film is available online, and a rerelease in theaters is coming soon). The two in between (Fear of Music & Remain In Light are awesome, but sometimes take a bit to grow on you).
The Name of This Band is...my favorite live album ever. The frenetic coked to the gills energy and pace of that album, not to mention the musicianship and quality of the songs makes a strong case for Talking Heads as a top five American band of all time. I particularly love the live versions of the Fear of Music tracks on there, but it's all amazing. Incredibly, their biggest hit albums would follow thx largely to Burning Down the House becoming a frat boy anthem.
I love that record too (and that's a perfect description). My favorites are this version of "Electricity (Drugs)" and "Once In A Lifetime." Both on the CD reissue
Standing O, Kevin! I saw this tour in '78, and for the first time in print, my story: I played pinball with David backstage after....don't let him tell you HE won! That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! BTW, I witnessed no disharmony in the, admittedly, brief time with them. Chris and Tina were either just gonna be, or had just been married, and were a suitably sweet couple!
I'll do my best......thanks, Kevin! I've got a lot of 'em, and while I've already written all the "major" articles about meeting/spending time with recording artists (Ramones, Pistols, Cassidys Shaun and David, Iggy, Dolls, Todd, et al!), there are still lots of "little" stories that can and will only come out in comment sections, so I appreciate generous writers like you providing the acreage for them!
Ex: My meeting up with Desmond Child (at the same venue and in the same year...roughly....as my Heads story) is too tiny a mention to fill an article, but I'd love to do a full-blown article on Desmond (the male Diane Warren, as I call him!), as he's gone from your standard "run-o-the-mill" recording artist/singer/performer (2 albums on Capitol Records, late '70s with Desmond Child and Rouge....kind of a rockier Tony Orlando & Dawn!) to a mega-selling songwriter with a voluminous canon of mostly-'80s rock hits for a myriad of artists! Stay tuned!
Great piece for an essential record, Kevin! I obviously missed seeing the Talking Heads but have been fortunate enough to see the off-Broadway version of Here Lies Love (easily the most incredible theater experience I’ve ever had) and caught American Utopia at Red Rocks, so I can’t complain. Thrifted Byrne’s Rei Momo a few weeks ago, which I had never heard, and holy moly, is it a fun summer record. I highly recommend if you’ve missed it as well!
Still my fave TH album. I first heard this at a friends loft apartment in NZ while playing table tennis and stoned. Great days. He had no neighbors and cranked the dial up.
I'm always going to weight Fear Of Music and Remain In Light more heavily than the first two, but this was a leap from the skeletal (but still very good) debut. As for the River conundrum, I love Al Green's version yet always felt it was a bit fast, enjoying the syrupy tempo of the Heads' version. But that could be because I heard the cover before the original. I also like Bryan Ferry's delicately funky version from The Bride Stripped Bare, which came out about two months after More Songs.
I'm sure part of my preference comes from hearing this version first, but it's hard to resists that slower tempo! I love it now, but it took me quite awhile to come around to Remain In Light. My guess is that I wasn't ready for everything past "Once In A Lifetime?"
From that first Frantz drum intro, I was all in on Remain In Light...like the music of my dreams. My whole crew was totally energized by that album! Still gives me chills.
I want to say that More Songs About Buildings and Food is the first Talking Heads album I bought, followed shortly after by Talking Heads: 77 and Fear of Music. But my brain was rarely clear back then, so it is possible that Talking Heads: 77, or Fear of Music, was the first. Either way, I became a Talking Heads fan, started buying their albums as they came out, and I am still a fan. I listened to their entire discography a couple of years back. By the time I got to Naked, I had no desire to listen to their live or compilation albums. Fortunately, I could get back to the Talking Heads eventually and still be in love with their music, including More Songs About Buildings and Food. David Byrne live in 2018 still ranks as one of the best concerts ever in my concert compendium.
Every so often, someone on Twitter will post on of those engagement Tweets that asks something like, "what the one band you wished you could've seen?" and my answer is always Talking Heads. I'm hoping to at least Byrne in one of his shows.
Great post Kevin!! A personal moment in time which, like all such moments in time will be lost “...like tears in the rain”: the day I was grocery shopping while “And She Was” played on the overhead Muzak. A good moment (they, and that song were always favorites), and a not so good moment. I was suddenly “old”....
Those reminders about being "old" are gut punches! I get those from coworkers that overhear what I'm playing and tell me it reminds them of being in their parents' car.
Thanks for this Kevin! I’m not sure why I never really got into Talking Heads. But over the years I’ve thought I should take the time to dig into their catalog. I’m doing that now, starting with this album so thanks!
It’s not so much that my mind needs to be changed per se. More so that there’s just a whole bunch of music I wasn’t exposed to. I grew up in Bermuda and we had limited content on the radio. A lot of “soft rock”, “A.M. Gold” type of music. And some country, top 40 (thanks Casey Kasem), jazz, and reggae. We only had three TV channels and went through a period in the early 80s where we had no TV stations and no movie theatre (not so great as a kid, trust me).
I was 6 in 1977 and just beginning my musical journey, mostly with my dad’s old Beatles records or what he was playing on the reel to reel at parties (Bee Gees, Abba, Neil Diamond, Simon and Garfunkel).
Most people wouldn’t have been exposed to music like Talking Heads unless they were older or had friends or family visiting from abroad. There’s a whole host of artists, many quite well known, that I just never got into because of that.
Some of the seminal moments in my “musical education” came through my best friend’s older sister in the late 70s (The Police, Blondie, Joan Jett), a family trip to England in 1980 (The Specials, Kraftwerk) or a 1983 visit by a cousin from the UK (The Cure, Bauhaus, Echo & the Bunnymen).
Back to the album at hand, I really did enjoy it and am looking forward to digging into the rest of their catalog!
I received this LP as a Christmas gift in 1978. Unfortunately, it was warped so badly as to be unplayable. My parents didn't keep the receipt (I'm the eldest of seven!) so I wrote and mailed (!) a letter to Sire Records in NYC and in a matter of days, a new copy arrived at my house, no questions asked. Different times.
I still have that copy and it sounds great to this day. The Big Country just played randomly on my iPod in the car and I cranked it up. So, so good.
I have a friend who's in a punk band, a really good one at that. He had NEVER heard of Talking Heads before I played them for him. He's a good fifteen years younger than me, but still! Next thing he'll tell me is that he's never heard of Blondie.
On balance I still (marginally) prefer the 'shock value' of '77', but this is a truly great/innovative record (with a brilliant ironic title), ending with the magnificent 'The Big Country'
I disagree with you about their version of "River" being better than the original. Nobody beats Al Green and the Hi Rhythm Section at their finest.
I'm going to agree that Al Green elevates everything he touches. I love both versions and it depends on the mood...but you're right. It's Al for sure.
I think we can say that the Heads' cover brought massive attention to Al's original....and, that can never be a bad thing! I was one of those....and, no one's become a bigger Green fan than I over the decades!
Indeed!
Oh, Green's is fantastic! But for me, this version is just that much better.
I went through the biggest Eno/Talking Heads phase in my early 20s. I looove this album. I’m pretty sure I was able to score most of the Talking Heads albums via Columbia House. 😆
This one has one of my favorite opening tracks to an album ever.
Plus Artists Only was my anthem for years!
Ohhhh and one of my favorite album covers ever!
Lol. I too scored many, many tapes via Columbia House. And I can see the influence Artists Only had on you. :)
Thank you for this Kevin! Sophomore releases usually get such a bad rap but this album is pure gold. Stop Making Sense also had such an impact on me. It was wacky and beautiful. That's where I saw Tina Weymouth in action for the first time and fell in love. "This Must Be the Place" was my wedding song (like so many people I'm sure.)
That is a fantastic pick for a wedding song!! Speaking of which, watch this space for something different (and I hope fun?) coming up Wednesday.
I sort of avoided Talking Heads when I was a young teenager, gradually making my way over to grunge instead (and then punk). I'm not sure why, but I never really revisited them with a deep dive. I do like some of their stuff, though, so maybe this is a kick in the pants to take another look.
Please consider this a (friendly) kick in the pants. Would love to know what you think once you've checked out a couple.
Kevin, would I be well served by jumping in with some of their earlier stuff? I tend to enjoy an artist's first two albums the most, but not always.
My thought would be to start with '77 and this one, then skip ahead and enjoy Stop Making Sense (the concert film is available online, and a rerelease in theaters is coming soon). The two in between (Fear of Music & Remain In Light are awesome, but sometimes take a bit to grow on you).
Thanks, Kevin! Checking out (or revisiting, not sure) 77 today.
The Name of This Band is...my favorite live album ever. The frenetic coked to the gills energy and pace of that album, not to mention the musicianship and quality of the songs makes a strong case for Talking Heads as a top five American band of all time. I particularly love the live versions of the Fear of Music tracks on there, but it's all amazing. Incredibly, their biggest hit albums would follow thx largely to Burning Down the House becoming a frat boy anthem.
I love that record too (and that's a perfect description). My favorites are this version of "Electricity (Drugs)" and "Once In A Lifetime." Both on the CD reissue
Standing O, Kevin! I saw this tour in '78, and for the first time in print, my story: I played pinball with David backstage after....don't let him tell you HE won! That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! BTW, I witnessed no disharmony in the, admittedly, brief time with them. Chris and Tina were either just gonna be, or had just been married, and were a suitably sweet couple!
I could listen to stories like this all day!
I'll do my best......thanks, Kevin! I've got a lot of 'em, and while I've already written all the "major" articles about meeting/spending time with recording artists (Ramones, Pistols, Cassidys Shaun and David, Iggy, Dolls, Todd, et al!), there are still lots of "little" stories that can and will only come out in comment sections, so I appreciate generous writers like you providing the acreage for them!
Ex: My meeting up with Desmond Child (at the same venue and in the same year...roughly....as my Heads story) is too tiny a mention to fill an article, but I'd love to do a full-blown article on Desmond (the male Diane Warren, as I call him!), as he's gone from your standard "run-o-the-mill" recording artist/singer/performer (2 albums on Capitol Records, late '70s with Desmond Child and Rouge....kind of a rockier Tony Orlando & Dawn!) to a mega-selling songwriter with a voluminous canon of mostly-'80s rock hits for a myriad of artists! Stay tuned!
It's crazy some of the album runs the bands of this era had. Talking Heads, the Smiths, the Cure, REM, the Replacements.
Like most young-ish people, I found out about the Talking Heads through "Once In a Lifetime" but this one may be my favorite album of theirs.
It was an absolute blistering run of records. I'd say '90-'91 was the same, but that was one record each from multiple bands.
Great piece for an essential record, Kevin! I obviously missed seeing the Talking Heads but have been fortunate enough to see the off-Broadway version of Here Lies Love (easily the most incredible theater experience I’ve ever had) and caught American Utopia at Red Rocks, so I can’t complain. Thrifted Byrne’s Rei Momo a few weeks ago, which I had never heard, and holy moly, is it a fun summer record. I highly recommend if you’ve missed it as well!
Thank you! I would love to have seen any of those. Rei Momo is a new one for me, and will change that ASAP!
Still my fave TH album. I first heard this at a friends loft apartment in NZ while playing table tennis and stoned. Great days. He had no neighbors and cranked the dial up.
Sounds like you listened to it the way it was intended! :)
I'm always going to weight Fear Of Music and Remain In Light more heavily than the first two, but this was a leap from the skeletal (but still very good) debut. As for the River conundrum, I love Al Green's version yet always felt it was a bit fast, enjoying the syrupy tempo of the Heads' version. But that could be because I heard the cover before the original. I also like Bryan Ferry's delicately funky version from The Bride Stripped Bare, which came out about two months after More Songs.
I'm sure part of my preference comes from hearing this version first, but it's hard to resists that slower tempo! I love it now, but it took me quite awhile to come around to Remain In Light. My guess is that I wasn't ready for everything past "Once In A Lifetime?"
From that first Frantz drum intro, I was all in on Remain In Light...like the music of my dreams. My whole crew was totally energized by that album! Still gives me chills.
I want to say that More Songs About Buildings and Food is the first Talking Heads album I bought, followed shortly after by Talking Heads: 77 and Fear of Music. But my brain was rarely clear back then, so it is possible that Talking Heads: 77, or Fear of Music, was the first. Either way, I became a Talking Heads fan, started buying their albums as they came out, and I am still a fan. I listened to their entire discography a couple of years back. By the time I got to Naked, I had no desire to listen to their live or compilation albums. Fortunately, I could get back to the Talking Heads eventually and still be in love with their music, including More Songs About Buildings and Food. David Byrne live in 2018 still ranks as one of the best concerts ever in my concert compendium.
Every so often, someone on Twitter will post on of those engagement Tweets that asks something like, "what the one band you wished you could've seen?" and my answer is always Talking Heads. I'm hoping to at least Byrne in one of his shows.
Great post Kevin!! A personal moment in time which, like all such moments in time will be lost “...like tears in the rain”: the day I was grocery shopping while “And She Was” played on the overhead Muzak. A good moment (they, and that song were always favorites), and a not so good moment. I was suddenly “old”....
Those reminders about being "old" are gut punches! I get those from coworkers that overhear what I'm playing and tell me it reminds them of being in their parents' car.
Thanks for this Kevin! I’m not sure why I never really got into Talking Heads. But over the years I’ve thought I should take the time to dig into their catalog. I’m doing that now, starting with this album so thanks!
You bet! I'll be curious to see if this trip through their discography changes your mind at all.
It’s not so much that my mind needs to be changed per se. More so that there’s just a whole bunch of music I wasn’t exposed to. I grew up in Bermuda and we had limited content on the radio. A lot of “soft rock”, “A.M. Gold” type of music. And some country, top 40 (thanks Casey Kasem), jazz, and reggae. We only had three TV channels and went through a period in the early 80s where we had no TV stations and no movie theatre (not so great as a kid, trust me).
I was 6 in 1977 and just beginning my musical journey, mostly with my dad’s old Beatles records or what he was playing on the reel to reel at parties (Bee Gees, Abba, Neil Diamond, Simon and Garfunkel).
Most people wouldn’t have been exposed to music like Talking Heads unless they were older or had friends or family visiting from abroad. There’s a whole host of artists, many quite well known, that I just never got into because of that.
Some of the seminal moments in my “musical education” came through my best friend’s older sister in the late 70s (The Police, Blondie, Joan Jett), a family trip to England in 1980 (The Specials, Kraftwerk) or a 1983 visit by a cousin from the UK (The Cure, Bauhaus, Echo & the Bunnymen).
Back to the album at hand, I really did enjoy it and am looking forward to digging into the rest of their catalog!
I received this LP as a Christmas gift in 1978. Unfortunately, it was warped so badly as to be unplayable. My parents didn't keep the receipt (I'm the eldest of seven!) so I wrote and mailed (!) a letter to Sire Records in NYC and in a matter of days, a new copy arrived at my house, no questions asked. Different times.
I still have that copy and it sounds great to this day. The Big Country just played randomly on my iPod in the car and I cranked it up. So, so good.
I wonder what they’d say today?
I have a friend who's in a punk band, a really good one at that. He had NEVER heard of Talking Heads before I played them for him. He's a good fifteen years younger than me, but still! Next thing he'll tell me is that he's never heard of Blondie.
Poor guy! Think of all he'd been missing out on!
On balance I still (marginally) prefer the 'shock value' of '77', but this is a truly great/innovative record (with a brilliant ironic title), ending with the magnificent 'The Big Country'