I can remember the first time I heard the Talking Heads. I think I was 5 years old, and MTV was still showing music videos. One of the earlier videos was the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime”, with David Byrne (the principal songwriter) singing while doing these funky body movements. It wasn’t dancing by any stretch of the imagination. I specifically remember the part where he sang “same as it ever was” over and over while making chopping motions with his right hand onto his left forearm. I laughed then about it and still laugh now. I thought it was bizarre.
Over the years I have become more and more familiar with the Talking Heads, though I can still say that my knowledge of their entire catalog is weak. I know their hits, and I’ve seen a few more videos, but they were a pretty important band in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. They were not punk (think the Clash or the Sex Pistols). They were not disco (think the Bee Gees or Blondie), nor were they arena rock (think Journey or Peter Frampton). Their style was more a reaction to all of those styles, something that was called “new wave”. They incorporated elements of these styles with other elements, including avant-garde, funk, world music and art rock. Produced predominantly by famous producer/artist/collaborator Brian Eno, the Talking Heads released eight albums (7 with Eno). Later in their career internal struggles (with Jerry Harrison, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth complaining of Byrne’s tyrannical rule of the band) broke the band apart, and they really haven’t performed together since.
All this aside, today’s entry regards their live album The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, which was originally released in 1982 but re-released in 2004. The re-release expanded the original release by nearly double, going from 17 tracks to 33.
#8 – Talking Heads, The Name of This Band is Talking Heads (Metascore = 93)
The re-release of this album contains two discs. Disc one was taken from live performances from 1977 and 1979 and is strictly the original four band members (Byrne, Harrison, Weymouth and Frantz). Compared to the first release, there are an additional nine songs (with three additional tracks to the original venues selected and six from three other venues). The band’s performance is very loose but you can tell that they are a tight group. They work extremely well together, particularly on this disc.
Of the two discs this one is my favorite. Byrne is at some of his wildest. One of the funny things with him that has been discussed by fans and critics is Byrnes minimal introductions to the songs. He opens the record by saying “The name of this song is ‘New Feeling’. That’s what it’s about.” From there the band dives into songs off of Talking Heads: 77 and More Songs about Buildings and Food. I like a lot of the songs here just because they have a cool jammy feeling to their songs. “Psycho Killer” was one of their first singles and is a personal favorite, as are “New Feeling” and “Who Is It?”
(I’m not going to dive into what the songs mean. Ok, I might occasionally, but in general I’m leaving my entry to commenting on how they perform, which is admirably.) The one knock I will make to the sequencing and splicing with this record is that some of the tracks do not seamlessly mesh together. Sometimes you can tell easily that the venue has changed or the crowd has changed. While this does not detract from the overall quality of the album, it is something I think they could have addressed.
Disc 2 was taken from live performances from 1980 thru 1981. The disc opens with a lush version of “Psycho Killer”, this time with a 10-piece band. In fact, the entire second disc is the original band with six other musicians performing songs from each of their first two discs previously mentioned as well as songs off the Fear of Music and Remain in Light records. The reason for the larger band is due to the band’s foray into broader musical styles, including world music.
With the larger band comes jammier music, meaning the band tends to meander more on these songs. Some of the songs are very good, but I was less impressed with this disc as I was the first. Byrne is still wild, though some of the looseness on the first disc seems to be lost. That’s not to knock on the performances, as the band still performs well…just not up to my preference. A couple of the songs I enjoyed on this disc include “Cities”, “Once in a Lifetime”, “Life During Wartime”, and “Take Me to the River”.
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