Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

Do I wish I got more out of this stuff than I do? You bet I do. Particularly since folks like Shakey and McBoing-Boing like 'em.

truly insane argument by Turrican, especially considering Tina Weymouth is in the band - one of the funkiest bass players ever.

I don't think of TH in terms of funk tbh. I don't think they are ever really "funky" in the conventional 70s-funk-by-black-artists sense. They borrow (liberally) elements from funk but I don't think they ever really get there, or even intended to get there. I think of them more like CAN - interested in building a musical vocabulary that deliberately excises certain things (some of which they were explicit about cf. Byrne's comments about "the blues", major key melodies, etc.) in favor of trying to incorporate genres and instrumentation and approaches that were not normally the province of white America (tropicalia, afrobeat, Brian Eno lol). Somewhere around the end of Speaking in Tongues-era Byrne very clearly *does* turn back towards America and then there's brief period of warped Americana/True Stories/Little Creatures which pulls in these other things like country and zydeco while mashing them together with their previous interests. And from then on Byrne is just in full polyglot cut-up pastiche mode through Naked and into his solo career.

these goddam byrnebros

superficial "African" elements

feel like this is a deliberate misreading as well, since it's not like their tactic was to just threw a ngoni solo on top of standard American pop song. Esp w/Remain in Light they are clearly borrowing compositional/structural ideas - building songs around circular multi-part vocal melodies, or long droning vamps that just alternate around a single tonal center or two-note riff.

I don't think of TH in terms of funk tbh. I don't think they are ever really "funky" in the conventional 70s-funk-by-black-artists sense. They borrow (liberally) elements from funk but I don't think they ever really get there, or even intended to get there. I think of them more like CAN

Kind of agree with this, they were definitely funky, but on their own terms - like Can - and not in some lame 'white funk band' way that Turrican seems to imagine they were.

yeah there is an immense gulf in approach between, say, the Average White Band and Talking Heads

there's this great japanese record called "fine time, a tribute to new wave" where a guy named yasuyuki okamura does "burning down the house". what's great about is not just the performance itself, but the fact that okamura is clearly singing it phonetically. the lyrics sound even better when they're sung by someone to whom they're literally, not just figuratively, meaningless. better than byrne!

i searched to see if it was on youtube, but i only found a version of talking heads' version apparently transcoded from a 32k realaudio file. it has 306 views.

xxpost:

Yes, I didn't expect that description to go down well, but unfortunately - because, like I say, I wish I got more out of their music than I do - it's exactly what I hear.

I don't see Can as a funk band at all.

One of the great things about TH is that on the whole they appreciated without appropriating music outside their immediate worldview. So when they dabbled with funk and African rhythms, it felt like they'd worked out what made that music great on a nucleic rather than superficial level. They 'got' it. Byrne never tried to make his vocals and lyrics 'funky', it was all in the groove, and even then, even when they were working with members of Funkadelic, it was never a note-for-note rip off of that music or a piss-take. You could tell they'd been listening to disco and funk and afrobeat, but weren't setting out to mimic it.

So, no, I would never call them a 'funk' band, always a new wave band, even though their very earliest stuff had a certain amount of funky drive to it.

v otm

In this case, I think it's irrelevant how they intended to or were setting out to sound, more how they actually do - and for the most part, I hear white funk.

Wild Cherry was doing white funk in case you need a reference point

In this case, I think it's irrelevant how they intended to or were setting out to sound, more how they actually do - and for the most part, I hear white funk.

OK, so you listen to Talking Heads and you hear white funk. Are you sure you're listening to Talking Heads and are you sure you know what funk is?

Why am I even asking the question?

Am I right? Am I wrong?

My God, what have you done?

big fan of the average white byrne

Indeed, why are you even asking the question when you know the answers are "yes" and "yes"?

Yes, Wild Cherry did white funk and so what? Yes and Genesis were both prog bands yet their approaches are different. It happens.

AWB seem clearly to be aiming for some pastiche of "authentic" black funk, for better or worse. Talking Heads are attempting to filter the idea of funk through some notionally white filter with its attendant up tight neuroticism. Not saying this is better or worse. But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.

it's about as insightful as calling new order a disco band tbh

Indeed, why are you even asking the question when you know the answers are "yes" and "yes"?

If only it was that obvious.

AWB seem clearly to be aiming for some pastiche of "authentic" black funk, for better or worse. Talking Heads are attempting to filter the idea of funk through some notionally white filter with its attendant up tight neuroticism. Not saying this is better or worse. But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.

― 29 facepalms, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 12:20 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup!

But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.

Especially if someone is also going to say that Weymouth is one of the funkiest bass players ever. xp

Byrne described the full touring band in their SMS mode a 'disco funk revue' which is fair enough, but calling them a 'funk band' seems reductive or slightly off. Funky band, yes, sure. Even the Smiths could be funky. But I guess this is all semantic. Turrican, have you seen Stop Making Sense? Ironically that's the film that made TH make sense to me.

What genre label wouldn't be reductive?

Stop Making Sense also features Parliament/Funkadelic's Bernie Worrell on keyboards, so it gets blurry. Simulacra Funk.

TH having their own take on funk/disco/afrobeat because they listened closely is true and obvious and the only way to conflate that with superficial bland "white funk" is maybe due to too many indie bands since trying to do the same thing or just plain deafness sorry. Also, I don't know anyone who loves Remain In Light who isn't also into all sorts of r'n'b genres. At least I hope I don't.

A very large portion of their catalog doesn't really relate to funk at all. Not sure how you connect 77 or MSABAF to white funk.

Yeah, I was going to say while TH didn't really appropriate the music that they were listening to, plenty of bands (like Arcade Fire) have made careers from appropriating TH, as well as others. That TH track that samples Francis Bebey and sounds a bit ABBA-ish for example; TH used samples and loved disco but they wouldn't have done something like that. They were quite methodical about it too - like with I Zimbra, the closest thing they came to sounding like afrobeat, using a Dadaist poem as the lyrics etc...

TH used samples? Where?

I never understood Arcade Fire comparisons to TH. I don't think anything Arcade Fire has ever done has sounded particularly like Talking Heads, save their early Talking Heads cover, perhaps.

At least until the Speaking in Tongues era I think of the TH as sort of academic anti-funk. They were one of those bands, like VU (iirc) who made a point of avoiding blues licks and progressions, at least early on. If anything they presage no wave as much as new wave, not unlike Devo. TH's Al Green cover is to funk/soul sort of what Devo's "Satisfaction" is to rock, sort of a weirdly sideways glance.

Deep down, everyone knows the AF's primary influence is John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band.

TH used samples? Where?

― Moodles, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 4:01 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts is famous for its use of sampling, but rather than sampling disco or afrobeat records to prove their hip cultural cache, they sampled preachers off of Christian radio

Not really TH exactly

I never understood Arcade Fire comparisons to TH. I don't think anything Arcade Fire has ever done has sounded particularly like Talking Heads, save their early Talking Heads cover, perhaps.

A whole bunch of their last two albums are clearly influenced by Talking Heads, but clearly missing the point. It's as though Win Butler listened to TH (much in the same way as Turrican) and thought 'Now that's good - white people doing disco - I can do that too!'. And so he litters his tracks with afrobeat references and disco strings, whacks in some pseudo-paranoiac lyrics about the modern world, and thinks he's done some great work. That, in my view, is a form of appropriation - riding the same ideas but totally missing the point.

xp let's not nitpick here. You are OTM about much of TH's work not being funk-oriented. Even their funkiest records like RiL and FoM have a good handful of tracks that don't rely on funky grooves at all

Fear of Music isn't esp. funky, of course.

AF don't really do afrobeat, though? They're clearly inspired by Caribbean music on their last few albums, but since Regine is from Haiti, that kinda makes sense?

Turrican, have you seen Stop Making Sense? Ironically that's the film that made TH make sense to me.

Dog Latin nails it right here, I was just going to suggest the same. That film has the visual element to Talking Heads that is missing, as well as the aforementioned live aspect, that helps fill in the picture. But, to be fair, the music should stand on its own.

I think people's reactions itt are interesting - going down the "cultural appropriation" rabbit hole isn't going to get anywhere. When people say they don't like a particular artist, my first question is, "What exactly do you find off-putting?" I can understand finding David's voice difficult but liking the music - that's how I feel about Robert Smith and The Cure. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of different musical styles? That's exactly what I love about TH. Or maybe the hype or image surrounding an artist is the problem. I usually find that easy to ignore.

And for some artists, I find that cherry picking my favorite songs is enough. Maybe that's where Turrican is with Talking Heads.

But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.

You've got to question why it is that people are losing their minds, really. I think people in this thread are too scared to call something for what it is out of some kind of deep fear that others will think they're somehow closet Wild Cherry fans and that's basically what it boils down to.

So, "white funk for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal", as I near enough said in the first place.

"Talking Heads listen to funk and are influenced by funk and are white people that play funk but OH GOD THEY'RE NOT WHITE FUNK!" ...

...yeah, OK mate.

No-one is losing their minds, the fact you have no clue about what you're talking about, as usual, is just irritating.

That's all.

But, fair enough, I occasionally might blunder into a Paul McCartney thread, or whatever, to make inane comments, I hold my hand up.

ah more ad hominem strawman attacks impugning people's tastes, always a good route to go down. Why don't you just come out and say that TH fans are racist for not liking "real" funk music and be done with it.

(ftr Average White Band, Wild Cherry and KC and the Sunshine Band have some jams)

if you can't tell the difference between what AWB or Wild Cherry do and what TH do idk what to tell you. These bands are not alike.

I was going to say earlier, enough of the attacks on AWB!

xxxpost:

I think you'll find the music speaks for itself, Tom. It's others that project stuff onto it. Given that you're generally someone who perceives himself to have some sort of sophisticated and exotic taste, it surprises me none to find you're offended. Sorry to burst your bubble, it wasn't intentional.