The Name of This POLL Is...- ILM artist poll #82 - TALKING HEADS - (voting is open until Sunday March 26, 2017)

I really can't understand the appeal of Found A Job, it's lacking in hooks & the ending jam is really grating and doesn't go anywhere interesting

dl and Alfred, thanks for the book recommendations.
dl, I bought the Byrne book a couple of years ago to read on a holiday trip, could not get into it at all. Not the author's fault I think, fiction rather than non-fiction was what I needed back then. I'll try again. Some time.
Alfred, I'll look out for the book, a quick search indicates it should not be that hard to find a copy online.

There's also Jonathan Lethem's 33⅓ entry on Fear of Music, but after a quick scan it looks like it's more about the author than about the album or the band.

Yeah I checked, considered then dismissed that

willem - I didn't make it all the way through the book. I wasn't interested in certain chapters about music distribution etc, but the first half is excellent in a 'waxing philosophical about music and the process of making it' way.

Can't believe people are dismissing More Songs About BAF upthread. It's just such a good, punchy selection of songs. Just track after track after track of punky fun.

And yeah The Good Thing is fantastic. The weird spider-scramble guitar in the verse alone...

oh no I'm thinking of 'With Our Love'

But yeah, The Good Thing is definitely a good thing. They're all good things, it's just they pass in such a quick succession with no let-up in between it's hard to really pull that album apart. I mean 'Warning Sign'. Each track is upbeat but also has this uneasy ominous feeling.

As you've probably worked out, I'm listening to MSABAF.

Do people like Found A Job?

Artists Only is another amazing one that I'm placing high on my ballot.

wish i were less indifferent to little creatures, sorry alfred

i also think on that one side two >>> side one

On the topic of More Songs vs 77, I think that although nothing on More Songs quite reaches the heights of the debut, the album is more consistently great and just kinda flows better. I love little things on it like how at the end of 'Thank You For Sending..' when Byrne sings 'Show me what you can do!' the album immediately breaks into the frenetic jam at the start of 'With Our Love'.

In comparison, I consider 77 to be very backloaded, which can make the first half drag a little. Plus, the production isn't as good.

I consider 77 to be very backloaded, which can make the first half drag a little.

agree, was saying so upthread, but i think they both are.

agree, was saying so upthread, but i think they both are

Ah, see I like 'The Good Thing', 'With Our Love' and 'The Girls Want...' too much to say the same about More Songs.

Ballot sent! Didn't vote for anything from the last 3 albums. 'Cool Water' from Naked was a contender but didn't make the cut.

voted!

I'm just gonna chew on my ballot for another week and obsessively tweak the order of the songs

Interesting thing I just recalled re: Belew. I saw that Byrne tour behind the "Everything That Happens ... " album, where the entire setlist was more or less stuff from that album or stuff from the TH/Eno albums. Byrne was the only guitarist, but on, say, the "Remain in Light" stuff, he pulled off all the Belew-isms pretty well!

Along those lines, relistening to More Songs and yeah, might still be my favorite. Totally don't get this as a mere continuation of the first album.

Who Is It? is such a jam.

I like the debut more with each re-listen--I might vote for five of its songs.

David Byrne is a very good and underrated guitarist. I was watching the Chronology DVD and even on those early shows he's fucking killing it. Always thought it was down to Harrison or Belew because he doesn't play all that much guitar on SMS, but yeah he's nailing it while singing and that's not terribly easy.

I just love Byrne's delivery throughout Artists Only. 'You can't see it till it's FIN-ISHED'

dog latin otm. I never realized what a monster guitarist he was until I saw the Rome '80 (I think) video. And his playing never gets talked about/he never gets asked about it.

I'd easily rank him as one of my top 50 rhythm and lead guitarists. Check out his lead playing in the SMS "Crossyed and Painless" or well he does the rhythm chink-chink thing.

Another really funny bit on that DVD is this excruciating US TV performance/interview where the host (probably someone famous but who I don't know) asks a load of closed questions like 'Would you describe yourself as a shy person?'(To which David simply says 'Yes I guess so') and keeps referring to TH as 'You people'

the name of this band is talking heads is really as good as everyone says it is, huh

yeah, esp disc 2

I really need the expanded version of that, only have the 2LP

I'd easily rank him as one of my top 50 rhythm and lead guitarists. Check out his lead playing in the SMS "Crossyed and Painless" or well he does the rhythm chink-chink thing.

The main reason Uh Oh enthused me at the time was a return to a more freewheeling eh-fuck-it Byrne guitar mode, after years of restraint.

Another really funny bit on that DVD is this excruciating US TV performance/interview where the host (probably someone famous but who I don't know) asks a load of closed questions like 'Would you describe yourself as a shy person?'(To which David simply says 'Yes I guess so') and keeps referring to TH as 'You people'

Wait, you're not thinking of the bit where he interviews himself?

No no it's a sparkly Letterman-style show from the late-70s/early-80s. The interviewer is wearing a smart spangly suit. I couldn't tell you who he is because I don't know my US TV hosts very well but my god he's a terrible interviewer. All closed questions. Tina treats him very icily and the rest of the band are just baffled and awkward as anything.

Here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2PblNCo1Ok

it's just ugh.. like how do you mess this up worse?

lmao that interview is great. "organically shy" is a great fake talking heads song title

'Organically shy' sounds like a description of Aspergers I guess.

In other news 'Blind' off of Naked came on the radio while I as driving the other day and it sounded FANTASTIC

Finally listened to True Stories - dang, not bad! I think it's on a level with Little Creatures, with less high highs. "Dream Operator" is really pretty. Hilarious to hear that "Radiohead" isn't one of their weird moody songs a la "Warning Sign", but more like something They Might Be Giants would have cooked up

xxp - From Bowman's book:

In March, the band appeared on that old warhorse American Bandstand to play “Take Me to the River.” They didn’t exactly play it. David sang the song, but Talking Heads pantomimed at their instruments.
(...)
When Talking Heads finished “playing” “Take Me to the River,” Dick Clark padded over to chat with David, but the singer went somewhere else inside his head. He froze up.
The show was live. Now Dick Clark could do a back flip and land on his feet. He didn’t let David’s freeze-up freeze him. Dick Clark passed the microphone over to Tina.
She was shocked. No one ever talked to her. Dick Clark asked, “Tina, is David always this way?” Tina answered immediately. She remembered something Yann’s girlfriend, Julie, had said about David—David was “organically shy.” So that’s what Tina said, “David is organically shy.”
That broke the ice.

That Bowman book is sadly horrible. I couldn't make it much further than the first couple of chapters. The whole book is written just like that passage. It almost reads in Dick Clark's delivery.

The show was live.

American Bandstand hadn't been broadcast live since the early '60s.

I was thinking the same thing. It certainly wasn't live when I watched it at 11:30 on Saturday mornings.

I won't be doing the poll as it seems complicated with sending ballots etc but I feel my picks would be different to most anyway.

Briefly:
best TH album - Naked
celebrated TH album I don't care much for (in fact half of it irritates me very much esp. lyrically) - Remain in Light
Byrne better solo than in Talking Heads? - indeed, as I hear it he grew considerably better both as songwriter and singer in the '90s, but no one ever talks about any of those solo records, or songs.
best DB albums for me - Feelings and davidbyrne, plus Rei Momo. Both accompanying tours outstanding as well.
I stopped following his career around 2004, would like to resume checking out his output one day.

Damn.

you should vote, max!

If you can send an email, you can vote. Nothing complicated about it.

whoa that sure is an opinion max

If your first TH-associated album was Rei Momo and your third was Naked, which was my case, you'd be forgiven for being shocked with the first five albums.

I stuck Naked in the car yesterday -- woof. "The Facts of Life" sounds like a boomer experimenting with technology (think John Fogerty or Graham Nash). The second side is unforgivable except for "Cool Water" (maybe).

^^^ otm. I'm old enough that T Heads were one of those bands where I was on board from album one. I'm sure appreciation or irritation with certain parts of the chronology depends in large part on where you started. xp