What a year it has been for me musically. 1380 different artists heard. Some 56,000 minutes of music (over 38 days), Fela, Kate Bush, Talking Heads. Talking Heads. Very few albums give me goosebumps at the mention of their name, this is one of them. The Name of this Band is Talking Heads was released in 1982, having been recorded between November 17, 1977 – February 27, 1981. This monumental album is filled with live versions of songs recorded on Talking Heads’ first four studio albums: 77, More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, and Remain in Light. For me, this is a monumental, exciting and relentless work. I cannot wait to tell you all about it.
The first LP disk featured the original quartet in recordings from 1977 and 1979, and the second disk featured the expanded ten-piece lineup that toured in 1980 and 1981. Wikipedia
Added were two percussionists (Steven Stanley, Jose Rossy), two backup singers (Nona Hendryx, Dollette McDonald), Busta Cherry Jones on bass, Bernie Worrell (!) on keys, and a young Adrian Belew on lead guitar. Allmusic
Now this masterwork of live music consists of 33 tracks so I will not give you chapter and verse on each, rather selecting some of my highlights. The album begins with New Feeling, which is likely what you will experience by the end of the album. It certainly encapsulates how I feel about the album, with its novel frenzied approach. There is a certain nervousness in this track – likely being recorded in 1977 at the beginning of the band’s touring. The confidence they build by the end of this behemoth album is quite surprising.
Pulled Up is one of my favourite Talking Heads songs. The live version has some excellent variations on the studio version. There’s such a positivity and lightness to this, he is speaking to and for us – we have been pulled, pulled up by Byrne!
What album has the arrogance of including two versions of the same track, twice? This one of course. Psycho Killer and Stay Hungry are both gifted to us twice, one 1979 and 1981 versions. The first version of Psycho Killer is one of my highlights of the album. Great pace, great bass and a wonderful tense and nervous energy which defined the band’s earlier work.
Found a Job is another terrific live version, with a sensational jam session at the end during which one is floating away on the music, and indeed carried by it.
The Name of This Band‘s approach– collecting various live performances over a four-year period– is more revelatory and rewarding. It functions as both a timeline in which a listener can trace the band’s development and definitive proof that some of their supposed great departures– particularly an accomplished and complex rhythm section– were there from the onset. PItchfork
Air is a final highlights from the earlier recordings, before the full ten set piece joined. There is quietly competence in this track, the musicians are aware of their prodigious talent and showing it off on full display here. There is an excellent variation on the studio version ‘some people don’t know shit about the air’. Just superb.
The second disc borrows a page from Stop Making Sense‘s playbook and recreates the entire set from stops along the band’s Remain in Light tour, including a handful of tracks from the much-bootlegged February 1981 performance at Tokyo’s Nakano Sun Palace. Expanded to a 10-piece band that included Adrian Belew on guitar and Bernie Worrell on keyboards, the bulk of Disc 2’s material gives its studio versions a run for the money. Belew’s nuanced guitar work, more confident contributions from the core members, and the added rhythmic dimension and heft are frequently jawdropping, but the loose beats and a playful Byrne keep claims of muso nonsense at arm’s length. PItchfork
Heaven is one of the better highlights of the album, allowing us to basque in the glow of Byrne. The vocals are languishing, he is singing the track as felts. The arrangement is simple but the effect is quite beautiful.
The next songs are for me a continuous highlight, Psycho Killer, the second version, is even better than the first as the band gains confidence with touring experience. Cities is magnificent, great pace and relentless energy, even a mention of Birmingham. I Zimbra is from Fear of Music and based on a nonsense poem. The high pitched beeping in the background is excellent. The last half of the track with the pseudo-pizzicato, riff and guitar flourishes floors me.
With the exception of Animals, each song from Drugs to the Great Curve is magnificent. The album takes on an energy of its own and transports us headlong towards the magnificent final two tracks. These are some of the more famous Talking Heads songs such as Once in a Lifetime (vocal flourishes keyboard in the background, synth in the middle and the bass add up to something otherworldly).
The final few tracks are astonishing and I feel it is quite beyond my powers of description to do them justice. Listen to them, listen to the energy of them and the reaction from the crowd. We are there with them in many ways.
My final highlight will be Take Me to the River – this is a mix between gospel and Blues Brothers bass lines which is intoxicating. The riff is sharp, well honed, the pace is sustained and while the track is not lyrically dense, its simple plea works away at our resistance, pushing us with Byrne into the river. Having been pushed into the river water of Byrne’s mind, we emerge on the other side, a new person.
Overall, this album is an immense (33 tracks!) display of Talking Heads’ talent. They are absolutely an urgent and important group of excellent musicians who demand your attention. The tracks are consistently brilliant and relentless. Surprisingly, there are no dud tracks throughout the album. Talking Heads have become one of my musical idols and this album is them at their career best. I hope you enjoy it.
The time has come yet again for AAOTY, where I explore the albums which have meant so much to me over the past 12 months but are not quite god enough to make AOTY. One year I did a post for AAOTM, highlighting 12 albums which did not make the list, but this was a comically massive task which I do not intend to repeat. See below a shorter selections of albums which have meant something to me this year.
Thomas Dolby – Live in Tokyo 2012
Starter for 10/10, Live in Tokyo 2012 has to be one of the best albums I have ever heard, let alone heard this year. Opening with Commercial Breakup , the album gets off to a flying start. This is one of the greatest tracks Dolby recorded. The album continues with songs from The Golden Age of Wireless, Aliens Ate my Buick as well as his latest work A Map of the Floating City as well as his excellent The Flat Earth. It is only not AOTY because of a few, in my view, less good tracks in the middle. But overall this is a very special album.
Kate Bush – The Sensual World
Avid readers will know I have reviewed this masterwork before. I won’t go into more detail than my previous review, however, suffice to say This album has moved me in more ways than I can describe this year. Whenever I wanted to sit down and play an album in full, actually set aside some time for myself, this is the one I would go for. Kate Bush is my number 1 most listened artist this year. And I believe this is my favourite album of hers. It is totally arresting and astonishing. Please do listen with open ears and minds. This is a thing of beauty. The only reason this is not AOTY is because it has been AITM previously.
Kraftwerk – Technopop / Electric Cafe
Thanks to Spotify I know exactly how many times I have listened to this wonderful album this year (27 if you are interested). Again, I have reviewed this before so I won’t go over it again. This is my most listened to album of the year, it is the one I go to when I need to concentrate and deal with a lot of matters in a short amount of time. In fact I got through 25 matters in my work to do list two weeks ago listening to this album. I love this and think it is one of the best albums they have made.
Talking Heads – 77
Are you noticing a theme here? I have reviewed this recently and can confirm that I have listened to it about 7 times since writing the review. Talking Heads have pretty much defined the latter part of this year. They have changed my life. Please do listen to this incredible piece of musical art.
Fela Kuti and Ginger Baker – Live!
Finally, the final album which I have reviewed already, Live! To be honest this should have been AOTY. The only reason it is not is because I wrote about it in June. I was so eager to share it with my subscribers that I got ahead of myself. This has made its way to my top pantheon of amazing albums. My thanks to Jack for introducing me to Fela Kuti this year.
Overall, as predicted, 2021 has been the year of live music. I have enjoyed a panoply of exquisite albums, having heard 1380 different artists this year, many of whose content has been live. I look forward to sharing AOTY with you in the next post…
Welcome to the final Five Favourites of 2021. It has been an absolute blast. See below my closing selections for the year:
Diana Ross – Eaten Alive (1985)
In addition to being an excellent album, Eaten Alive sports a rather unbelievable cover. Diana, afro sprawling, clutching her perls which are also in the mouth of stuffed tiger! At least I hope the tiger is stuffed or this might rank as one of the world’s most dangerous photo shoots. There’s something quite bizarre and wonderful about this cover.
Funkadelic – Maggot Brain (1971)
… the front cover depicting a black woman buried up to her neck screaming in agony and back cover showing the same woman’s head, now become a skull. Vinyl District
Model Barbara Cheeseborough (real name) is pictured on the cover of this celebrated album, buried up to her neck in dirt and screaming. What more could you want from a cover? I am not sure whether this constitutes good cover art but it is quite striking in a way. The skull adds a delicious layer of existential distaste into the mix.
Rick James – Come Get It! (1978)
There is something about Rick James covers which is surreal to me. Frequently in knee high faux leather booties, Rick seems to tread the line of camp and glam rock/funk. He seems to use this to dispel any suggestion of homosexuality by pointing directly at a young lady who seems very uncomfortable on the floor, possibly in as much agony as Ms Cheeseborough. I hope she wasn’t too cold.
Prince – Prince (1979)
The simplicity of this cover is quite striking to me. Prince, young and moustashed, presumably nude as he was in the cover of Lovesexy, with a smattering of the colour purple, looking smouldering. What more does one need in an album cover? This is so simple but so effective – here is the artist before you, no embellishments, just Prince. There is an honesty here which indeed flows through the album, in which Prince plays every instrument (around 26 from memory) with virtuosity.
Grace Jones – Warm Leatherette (1980)
Grace Jones highly underrated by me
Cannon, formerly Saint, Nicholas Jenkins
Finally, Grace Jones’ excellent cover for Warm Leatherette. My vinyl has the blue cover. This was an excellent cover designed by Jean Paul Goude. This was the first of the ‘new Grace’ phase after three disco albums produced by disco legend Tom Moulton. This was the new look and the new sound, recorded at Compass Point studios with Sly and Robbie from Black Uhuru. A piece of history here, folks.
Warm Leatherette was the first Jones album with cover art designed by her then-boyfriend, Jean-Paul Goude, which presented the singer’s androgynous look for the first time. It featured a black and white photograph of Jones pregnant, with her signature flattop haircut, sitting with her arms crossed. Chris Blackwell praised it as “a very powerful image”. Wikipedia
Well this album has rather changed my life. I have been an admirer of Talking Heads for some time. Their albums Speaking in Tongues and Remain in Light were the soundtrack to my erasmus year in Rome. I can never listen to them and not think of the B line from Termini to San Paolo, where I went to university. However, their debut album 77 was a total revelation. Ahead of their time in an understatement. What David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Frantz (drums), Tina Weymouth (bass), and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar) and created is quite beyond this reviewer’s ambit of description. One can but try to explain this gem of an album.
Alongside its ingenuity, Talking Heads 77 also exists as a mere glimmer of potential, a fascinating prelude to a few of the most visionary albums ever recorded. Pitchfork
From the first notes of the first song this album transports you into the bizarre mind of David Byrne, who is still making musical history to this day. Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town opens and descends into an a-typical Talking Heads Experience. Steel pans come out of nowhere. This track talks about the ardour of finding love in a high paced commercial environment in the stock broking world. It speaks to me for a number of reasons.
New Feeling is exactly that. There is excitement in the music which pulls you around, the music itself pulls back at points as though to express Byrne’s self doubt. Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison work together beautifully in parts of this track. Byrne’s vocals are almost like a broken accordion, which does not sound appealing but works very well in this context.
I wish I could meet, every one
I’ve ever met before
Meet them all over again
Bring them up to my room
Meet them all over again
Everyone’s up in my room
This is a new sound which is screaming out to be heard.
Tentative Decisions provides relief from the previous song. The arrangement is simple, almost military in parts. It speaks of the perils of taking a firm stance and then questioning the position one has taken. The breaks from the snare drums are quite ethereal, like one is floating through air. The piano at the end was quite unexpected.
Happy Day is not quite Perfect Day by Lou Reed (ho ho) but is still quite beautiful. 37 seconds in is a particular treat. The riffing is gorgeous while the vocals can be jarring at times. Who Is It? is a brief intermission track.
No Compassion has to be my highlight of the album.
In a world
Where people have problems
In this world
Where decisions are a way of life
Other people’s problems
They overwhelm my mind
They say compassion is a virtue
But I don’t have the time
If ever there was a song to describe my current exact mood this is the one. The riff is excellent, the exasperation is clear as day. The words are delivered in a poignant way “why are you in love with your problems, I think you’ve taken it a little too far. It’s not cool to have so many problems” – genius. I wonder who hurt David Byrne to the point of producing this track.
The Book I Read is another brilliant track. It’s about falling in love with an author. Great pace, great energy, the tale of an ambitious young New Yorker. The piano throughout is a triumph. The drums at the end are transcendent.
Don’t Worry About the Government is a sarcastic upbeat song about an optimistic person coming to New York and all the things they hope to do which they will not be able to do because of the government. It is both optimistic and pessimistic, without saying anything negative. The whole song has, to me, the spectre of government looming in the background threatening to stop him at every stage.
First Week / Last Week has an excellent lyric – “every appointment has been moved to last week”. Would that I could move my meetings to the past! I have an average of 25 meetings per week so can fully empathise. This song is quite harrowing, speaking of the dangers of overworking, which seems to be a theme in this album.
Now the song you have all been waiting for… Psycho Killer, que-ce que c’est? This song has historic links to killings in New York, though the band insist there was no such link. The song is a telling monologue of the inner thoughts of a serial killer.
The song was composed near the beginning of the band’s career and prototype versions were performed onstage as early as December 1975.[10] When it was finally completed and released as a single in December 1977, “Psycho Killer” became instantly associated in popular culture with the contemporaneous Son of Sam serial killings.[11][12] Although the band always insisted that the song had no inspiration from the notorious events, the single’s release date was “eerily timely”[10] and marked by a “macabre synchronicity”. Wikipedia
Finally, Pulled Up. This is also a highlight for me. A high point in the album. The excited New Yorker has come full circle and achieved what he dreamed of. This is indeed what David Byrne went onto achieve, being a leading authority on music, theatre and cinematography. What a terrific success and fulfilling album this is. Listen to the guitars descending after “you pulled me up”. Just great.
Overall I have three main impressions: this is an album about new punks on the block looking to make a name for themselves. This album is written to encompass the fraught perils of being new on the scene and emerging as a band of note. IT is filled with possibilities and successes waiting to happen, a hopelessly hopeful album.
Welcome to another edition of Five Favourites where I share some excellent album covers which have brought me some measure of joy over the last few weeks. See below your fixe for November.
Fleetwood Mac – English Rose (1969)
An absolutely extraordinary cover. Of course this drag esque figure of a woman is the antithesis of an English Rose and is more reminiscent of one of Dr Evil’s goons in the first Austin Powers movie (“That’s a man, baby!”). But still, you have to admire the confidence Fleetwood Mac must have had to publish this in 1969.
Queen – News of the World (1977)
On the subject of frightening covers, see above this terrifying cover of a wonderful Queen album. The idea of a giant robot carrying the members of Queen, in full regalia, is just excellent. In fact, it is so scary that Family Guy included it in their episode Killer Queen. Brian used it to torture Stewie, who was deathly afraid of the cover!
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band – Trout Mask Replica (1969)
By this point I suppose you believe this month’s covers are All Hallows Eve based, and subconsciously I may have chosen these to reflect the horror of my present mood. However I find that I write best when stimulated, by all extremes of emotion. Trout Master Replica is called at once (by proper Music Men (TM) who can appreciate such works) a masterpiece and a cursed album. I have not yet understood the attraction to this strange band but am always willing to be proven wrong. What a very strange album this is, but absolutely worth seeing.
King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)
I suppose this is quite similar to the first cover in some ways. They were contemporaneous. This is supposedly one of the best albums ever made but I don’t see it. In fact I’m minded to think the opposite but this is a matter of my current taste. I need to listen with open ears and make an objective decision – but when does one have the time to open their minds? Anyway, this is quote something, a shocking and nauseating meld of colours and emotions which leaves one open mouthed, shall we say?
Grace Jones – Slave to the Rhythm (1985)
I have hinted at this album cover in the inaugural Five Favourites in March but not written about it directly. Of course those of you in the know will remember this won AOTY in 2019, and I was so overwhelmed that I could not talk about it. The cover is something of a work of art for me. I read in Grace’s memoirs, ‘I’ll Never Write My Memoirs’, that Jean Paul Goude designed this cover to mimic the face Grace made at the moment she gave birth to their son Paulo Goude. It’s quite extraordinary and equally frightening. I have a framed sketch of this on my wall. Just sensational.
Keen readers of this weblog may well have noted that October was conspicuously lacking in any Album Of The Month (“AOTM”) post. Indeed, the more anxious amongst you may well have begun to worry that an AOTM post for October would never materialise. Fear not, however, for I am happy to present what I believe to be the world’s first “October Album Of The Month But Neither Cedric Nor I Had The Time To Do One That Month So It’s Actually Published In November” post (“OAOTMBNCNIHTDOTMSIAPIN”). A catchy title I am sure you will agree.
It must be said my belated choice for this august blog category is a somewhat unusual one, but nevertheless I believe it to be deserving of the accolade. Released by EMI at the turn of the century as part of their “Great Recordings of the Century” series, my album of the month is strictly speaking a compilation of two earlier recordings by Maurizio Pollini. The first being a recording of Chopin’s piano concerto No. 1 in E minor from April 1960 and the second a recording of a recital of solo piano music by Chopin from 1968.
Pollini began his recording career as an EMI artist before heading over to Deutsche Gramophone. Although recorded very early in his career, these performances are particularly fine, indeed some have argued that a few of his later efforts at DG have been a little “cold and mannered” in comparison. The performances here are far from lacking in warmth and lyricism, characteristics that are particularly on display in the Concerto’s Romanze second movement and the nocturnes. At the same time, Pollini’s playing on this album displays a clarity of expression that belies his then youthful inexperience.
For the piano concerto Pollini is very ably accompanied by Paul Kletzki and the Philharmonia, albeit given the dominance of the piano in this work, we should be scarcely surprised that Pollini takes centre stage. Written while Chopin was still living in Poland, this is not a piece I know well, although, I must say, I did enjoy the Romanze movement very much.
The highlights of the album for me, however, are definitely Pollini’s rendition of Chopin’s D-flat major nocturne and the Ballade in G minor. Pollini handles the nocturne with its dreamlike excursions so deftly, while his playing in the Ballade brings rigour to a piece that at times feels hardly able to contain its (for the time) unparalleled ferocity. The album ends with the Polonaise in A-flat major, a fittingly dramatic and uplifting departure to a truly captivating album.
