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

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

Huh, I like a lot of "Naked." But it definitely has more in common with "Rei Momo" than anything that came before. I wonder what the rest of the band really had to do with it? Anyway, "(Nothing But) Flowers" is all-time, as is the anecdote in Sand in the Vaseline that they went to pick up some hot shot African guitarist to play on the record but accidentally picked up some other random African guitarist, who turned out to be great.

the live "born under punches" is a brain melter

hi, Brad

"Born Under Punches" - Yeah, I rarely make footnotes on my lists, but Bee's gonna see a big asterisk and "THE LIVE VERSION, NOT THE OTHER ONE" on my ballot.

both are irreducible knots but the live one's a little looser gets this kind of "how are they holding this together" aura

"crosseyed" is probably where i'm gonna insist on live versions

and i know it's not allowed but i feel like voting for "new feeling" and "a clean break" together

I won't slag too much on the post-hiatus material, but I will say I liked the band better when it was a contemporary of Television rather than They Might Be Giants.

"New Feeling" ended up surprisingly high on my first run-through

what post-hiatus material?

Heads album?

I reviewed it for my college paper, after which I poured gasoline on the promo copy.

sand on the gasoline

"post-hiatus" = Speaking in Tongues onward? Three years between records was a long time for a band that had been putting out a record a year.

"Lifetime Piling Up" is as good as any Heads single and is on my ballot.

The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads needs to win the albums poll.

alfred is correct about "lifetime piling up"

I stuck Naked in the car yesterday -- woof.

I loved this record when it came out. Going back and relistening, side 1 still sounds great. Side 2, uh, not as much.

Listening to SIT. I never realized how much "Swamp" reminds me of ZZ Top

i liked "swamp" at the time, but it hasn't aged well. the band's first smirky pastiche of a familiar pop style, harbinger of decline.

XP I read an interview once with Billy Gibbons wherein he heaped praise on the 'Heads and said the shot in the "Burning Down The House" vid of Byrne's face projected on a road (with the white lines conveniently running up his nose) summed up the 80s in one go.

speaking in tongues has risen up my talking heads power rankings. it's tough to beat that closing trio

I remember at the time feeling let down by Speaking in Tongues overall after the brilliance of the first 4 albums

....will have to listen to it and the later albums again

I listened to all albums and the result is: they did not have 25 good songs. With a lot of stretching of my personal quality criteria I can scramble together 22 tracks. And I am quite generous there. They made a lot of awful music.

fped ;)

i liked "swamp" at the time, but it hasn't aged well. the band's first smirky pastiche of a familiar pop style, harbinger of decline.

― The sandwiches looked quite dank. (contenderizer), 17. marts 2017 22:21 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know, there's a bunch of segments on MSABAF that sounds like muzak/commercial music to me. They just leave the style quickly, while Swamp is bluesy snooze all the way through. I kinda like it, but probably not enough to vote for it.

actually i've been listening to little creatures a lot bc of this poll and i'd like to amend my "indifference" to it upthread. i like it more and more. i'm probably gonna vote for "perfect world" bc under different circumstances of production it'd be a highlight on 77

i didn't care about this album beyond the singles for YEARS. no idea what happened

Love swamp. Still trying to figure out if the line about Risky Business predates the movie or was inspired by same. Both from 1983. I first heard the song in that reprehensible but great film, where it's perfectly used.

Weird poll for me, as I like a lot of this band's songs, but kind of hate the band, if that makes any sense. Like I immediately distrust anyone who declares themselves a big fan, but at the same time recognize that they have a ton of great tracks.

"Swamp" was also on the King of Comedy soundtrack, released (I think) just before Risky Business

But I'm guessing that filming schedules being what they are, it's hard to sort out what influenced what. I've always wondered, and it's weird that nobody on the internet seems to know decisively whether the movie inspired the song, song inspired the movie, or coincidence...

on my way to Teenage Fanclub in Hollywood.

anyways, just wanted to say we are in double digits. keep them coming.

what, is it the 26th already?

lol, you have plenty of time. i need it too.

Relistened to Naked... it's sad how much the quality dips from side 1 to side 2. Take some of the songs from side 1 of Naked and some off Rei Momo, and I think you'd have an album better than any single Heads album

And while I'm on Rei Momo, let me shill for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21CO3_KVsmQ This is up there with the most beautiful songs Byrne made. Having Kirsty MacColl on it helps I suppose

Take some of the songs from side 1 of Naked and some off Rei Momo, and I think you'd have an album better than any single Heads album

ew no

yeah no. byrne the smoothed-out singer songwriter is much less interesting to me than talking heads the band.

TH are one of those bands where the sum really is more than the parts. There's a lotta good stuff about them and specifically the Eno period in Rip It Up And Start Again iirc