Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues poll

great/great

"I Get Wild" needs more luv

It's amazing

See this album has everything - reggae, jump blues, funk, big pop numbers - songwriting-wise I'd say their most adventurous

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the loss of Eno is really felt in the generally flatter/thinner production, but Byrne compensates by demonstrating a more developed mastery of conventional song structures and well-deployed vocal melodies. A majority of the songs on SiT have more memorable choruses and sing-along-able call and response bits than those on RiL, but RiL on the whole SOUNDS better.

SMS is horrible, wtf is with these defenders of those awful overdubbed drums & etc. I vastly prefer the dry, meticulous Eno-less sound of the studio versions.

love this album, prefer it to the SMS soundtrack (which is great, don't get me wrong). see little creatures and the true stories soundtrack as the NJ-style cracking point, though i have a lot of fondness for the former.

This is spot on -- so is Xgau on both:

Speaking in Tongues [Sire, 1983]
With Eno departed, the polyrhythms no longer seem so portentous--this funk is quirkily comfortable, like the Byrne-produced B-52's or the three-piece of Byrne's earlier primitivist period. Unfortunately, the polyrhythms no longer seem so meaningful, either. Though God knows there's no rock and roll rule that says playfulness can't signify all by itself, the disjoint opacity of the lyrics fails to conceal Byrne's confusion about what it all means. Yet side two lights me up nevertheless, sandwiching the purest anticapitalist song he's ever written and the purest prolove song he's ever written around two pieces of typically ironic-optimistic futurism. A-

Stop Making Sense [Sire, 1984]
Always skeptical of live albums, I note that this is their second in a four-year period that has netted only one studio job while establishing them as a world-class live band. Number one was a useful overview; number two is a soundtrack, albeit for the finest concert film I've ever seen, that repeats three songs from the overview and four from the studio job. Buy the video. B+

Upon rapid reflection, "Slippery People" for me, tho "Making Flippy Floppy" made it a race.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

good christ

Weak saice

Or sauce even.

go Pull Up The Roots! best TH 'deep cut' ever.

no that would be "Creatures of Love" or "The Good Thing."

otm

wow, that is a lot of votes. every song got a vote, yeah!

"Swamp" is in Risky Business, which is also a lyric in the song, and I've always wondered about that.

this must be the landslide

― some dude, Wednesday, April 3, 2013 10:14 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fuck, pull up the roots is fun. it's like byrne fronting tom tom club.

I got asked to play "This Must Be the Place" at a party the other night. I'm quite sure it wouldn't have happened if not for this thread, you know.

I've always loved 'Moon Rocks.' It's elfin' great. Can't believe it fell behind 'Swamp.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JFAA5dEup0

Early version of "The Lady Don't Mind" recorded during the SiT sessions.

Pull up the roots is my fave

^ my people

moon rocks has grown on me a bit. music-wise it sounds most like tom tom club

Goddamn this album is incredible

Also, Pull Up The Roots

"I Get Wild" needs more luv

It's amazing

― pssstttt, Hey you (dog latin), Sunday, April 7, 2013 1:18 PM (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this

pull up the roots deserved more love in this poll, and moon rocks especially. moon rocks fukken rules. the three song end of album sequence it kicks off is among my favorites in music

I agree. Pull Up The Roots is very high up in my favourite TH songs

If we're just going off a song-for-song basis, this is clearly the best TH album too. RIL might be a bit more daring but it has fillery moments whereas Tongues is just bangers beginning to end

This album is the soundtrack to the summer I graduated from high school. It didn't grab me immediately like the others did, but it's a grower.

Y'all are mad.

"Pull Up the Roots," "Moon Rocks," "I Get Wild" -- instant skippable.

Will still rep for I Get Wild like 5 years again during the last thread revive. Great album.

^ago

xxp Hard disagree, Alfred. Those are all solid tracks.

TMBTP the clear and deserving winner. The Stop Making Sense version is even better.

Pull Up The Roots SLAYS

controp: I've never found TMBTP very exciting.

I asked my guitar teacher, who has a really good grasp of music theory and whatnot, why This Must Be the Place pops out for everyone as the sentimental favorite, and he observed it's the only track on the album that isn't more or less blues-based.

Well, and it's Weymouth on guitar strumming the same couple notes for five minutes

Will still rep for I Get Wild like 5 years again during the last thread revive. Great album.

― that's not my post,

Cool bass line.

It's Byrne's vocals on that song that do it for me. "When you're standing here beside me/I love the passing of time/Never for money, always for love/Cover up and say goodnight, say goodnight" is pure magic.

Also "And you love me till my heart stops/Love me till I'm dead" is such a surprising couplet from David Byrne.

Pull Up The Roots is fantastic. Not sure if it’s a remix I like best or the original but what a song.

Listening to this album rn. I keep expecting the "Whoaaa!" In "Swamp."