Talking Heads/David Byrne appreciation thread

Just recently watched this again and I realised why this is a band I have always had so much respect for or maybe it's down to the talents of David Byrne. I love the lyrics too. Anyone know anything interesting about the band? I think they are still really relevant and unique today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lceLYw72ZL0

Didn't Byrne do stuff with Eno?

Anyway, discuss

Yes, Byrne and Eno made an amazing album that is very recommended: http://www.discogs.com/Brian-Eno-David-Byrne-My-Life-In-The-Bush-Of-Ghosts/master/6392

Was just listening to this bomb again yesterday in a sudden disco edit attack, I can play this one for hours in a row. It's a longer / bit faster edit I think, but mostly kept the same as the original. It was the very last track played in the Trouw club in Amsterdam before it closed down permanently, so yeah, I'd say they're still very relevant :)

https://soundcloud.com/patrice-baumel/talking-heads-this-must-be-the

Not familiar with thát much of Talking Heads outside of Remain In Light but I really love that album. I also picked up Byrne's book about how music works a while ago but I still haven't started with it yet unfortunately.

This thread is also worth a look: http://forum.watmm.com/topic/84567-new-talking-heads-51-downmixes/

Just remembered hearing Burning Down The House by Talking Heads as a kid in some average movie and finding it amazingly annoying. The turning point was when the Pukkelpop liveset by Aphex and Vibert was uploaded because they played some version of Once In A Lifetime, didn't know what it was but I was fascinated.

"Once in a Lifetime" is one the best pop songs ever imo

Talking Heads is like the definitive "weird band everyone likes and has heard of, "

Besides the music itself, I've always liked David Bryne's lyrics, which is funny because many of them were afterthoughts - he sang mumbled gibberish for "burning down the house" and really only used those words because they worked with the melody.

I've always liked the tongue and cheek lyrics of this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=068AFYvd58E

Good topic.

Remain in Light is just a solid gold classic, but that's all I have! Always keep saying to myself I need too find out more. I've been saying that for a long time lol but I just forget. I've had My Life in the Bush of Ghosts for eons too. Bought that back in the day when I bought Psalm 69 by Ministry. The bloke in the record shop told me to get it (Bush of Ghosts) because he reckoned thats where Al Jourgensen nicked all his ideas from

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Big fan.

I grew up listening to these guys a lot. My dad had all of their albums on vinyl, and a vhs copy of Stop Making Sense which I used to watch religiously. (That has to be the best concert film of all time, surely?)

Still not too familiar with much of Byrne's work outside of TH. I heard his album with Eno is def worth checking out?

I'm reading his book How Music Works right now and it's pretty entertaining and absorbing.

Yeah, I'm agreeing a lot with the sentiment in this thread - especially the idea that you know it's amazing stuff but don't end up propperly consuming it and appreciating all it has to offer. I think because it's so poppy in places I lose interest but the hooks are absolutely deadly, I should have it on at least semi regular rotation but don't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU

I think that might be my favourite song. It sends shivers down my spine every time even though I know it's kinda cooky and cheesy at the same time. I think it's the chorus harmony singing that makes it for me. I think a song like this taught me a lot about music. It's the whole call, response thing...you are waiting for the hook the whole time and it's so satisfying.

Fear of Music was actually the album that got me into TH - full of mad mixed influence and funky as hell:

But, it's still really weird at the same time. Love it.

TH lived the dream; made interesting, uncompromising music and made a good amount of money doing it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW1IqW6kNdU

total speck knucks to the talking heads

always loved the elcro-funk vies and quirked out vox since i was a wee babby

  On 8/7/2015 at 7:03 PM, valleyinaire said:

Still not too familiar with much of Byrne's work outside of TH. I heard his album with Eno is def worth checking out?

Absolutely listen to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, very soon. It was made right before Remain in Light recording sessions began as I recall if I read that correctly. The album is known now as an innovative example of sampling before people really knew how to use a sampler, but it's still a fresh, good album today in an aesthetic sense for the listener. I haven't heard much like it, but if anyone can think of anything with the same vibe, post it please! But it does bother me a bit that the vibe is just cultural appropriation of Middle-Eastern and African cultures mixed with white-funk, taking advantage of the "mystery" factor for the Western listener. Not entirely tasteful, but whatever, I still dig it a lot.

  On 8/8/2015 at 1:29 AM, Goiter Sanchez said:

TH lived the dream; made interesting, uncompromising music and made a good amount of money doing it!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW1IqW6kNdU

This is my favorite TH track. I think I like anything with simultaneous vocal parts with rhythmic variety, but this has a beautifully extreme emphasis on that.

  On 8/8/2015 at 6:39 AM, Vilwx said:

 

  On 8/7/2015 at 7:03 PM, valleyinaire said:

Still not too familiar with much of Byrne's work outside of TH. I heard his album with Eno is def worth checking out?

 

Absolutely listen to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, very soon. It was made right before Remain in Light recording sessions began as I recall if I read that correctly. The album is known now as an innovative example of sampling before people really knew how to use a sampler, but it's still a fresh, good album today in an aesthetic sense for the listener. I haven't heard much like it, but if anyone can think of anything with the same vibe, post it please! But it does bother me a bit that the vibe is just cultural appropriation of Middle-Eastern and African cultures mixed with white-funk, taking advantage of the "mystery" factor for the Western listener. Not entirely tasteful, but whatever, I still dig it a lot.

 

 

 

  On 8/8/2015 at 1:29 AM, Goiter Sanchez said:

TH lived the dream; made interesting, uncompromising music and made a good amount of money doing it!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW1IqW6kNdU

 

This is my favorite TH track. I think I like anything with simultaneous vocal parts with rhythmic variety, but this has a beautifully extreme emphasis on that.

 

Oh wow, life in bush of ghosts, that's really up my street actually. Cheers. Will enjoy tonight.

https://youtu.be/ilcD1fHcGB0

  On 8/8/2015 at 1:29 AM, Goiter Sanchez said:

TH lived the dream; made interesting, uncompromising music and made a good amount of money doing it!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW1IqW6kNdU

This is one of the greatest songs ever

Bush of Ghosts has some great moments, a must album for any lover of electronic strangeness if only for the wonky sounds some of which verge on early proto house

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00pLU0EGGxs

the lp with St Vincent had this ditty which is crying out for a slo-mo-disco/house edit &/or dub

ps: as mentioned above, his book How Music Works is a treat too, social anthropology meets CBGB's,,,,, whats not to like

LOVE Talking Heads. As a wide-eyed kid just being exposed to new music via mtv in the mid/late-80s I saw the video for burning down the house and it blew me away, like these guys were rocking but bringing in all the right elements from electro, hiphop, etc. Only later did I learn they formed at RISD (Prov represent, I took occupy-your-8-year-old-for-90-minutes art classes there as a kid haha) and got into the back catalogue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u06DpcFXc4U

Only later (again!) did I learn that TH set the fertile groundwerk for Tom Tom Club, who set this gem off for the beatheads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTLPQ9h659A

Oh and Mariah Carey, if you're reading this thread, fuck you, I heard your shitty remake of this song in a Stop and Shop on Cape Cod and it made me vomit in my mouth a bit.

Also, I have their greatest hits comp in my car and our 3-1/2 year old daugter kid absolutely loves it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66wxY8H4Mu0

cool the next generation are hearing the music

+1 for How Music Works, great read.

where to even begin.. talking heads are probably my favorite rock band ever. art nerds who decided to become a funk band. incredible. men and women, black and white, they all made music together and it was blissful, beautiful. first 5 albums are all genius. speaking in tongues is probably the "best" because every song is genius but remain in light hits higher when it does. I kinda wish the last two tracks on remain in light were scrapped. they seem so dated where the rest of the album seems utterly timeless. at work now but i can go on and on and on about t heads

came across this in Lars and the Real Girl the other day

  On 8/12/2015 at 3:44 PM, MDM Chaos said:

came across this in Lars and the Real Girl the other day

 

Check out the sc link in my first post in here, a very subtle edit but much more pleasant to have on repeat for hours (which happens a lot with that track...)

haha that way lies insanity i imagine. but thanks will listen to it.