Talking Heads - The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
1982
When Andy Warhol said that everything artists were doing in the 80's was the same as what Warhol & co had been doing in the 60's, he really meant that what everything artists are doing today is the same as what they were doing in the 80's. Which is best demonstrated by this record, which refers not only to itself, but to the music of today, tomorrow, and all that came before it.
The name of this band is Talking Heads. The name of the first song is “New Feeling,” and that's what it's about. Why this particular live album is better than any of their studio albums is hinted at in the first song: “I hear music, and it sounds like bells.” And you can hear the guitar overtones ringing out like bells. The bass is monstrous. The drums are so angular and tight that they serve as a straightjacket for Byrne's absolute surrender. If you've ever seen Stop Making Sense you have probably seen what that man puts into a performance... how could it be the same in a studio? How could you not feel like a fool giving your all to a performance in a sound-proofed box?
This album presents a band in their full, dynamic prime. As the material progresses from 1977 to 1981, the band doesn't necessarily move away from their original sound but rather expands on it. More new styles are embraced, most notably soul and afro-beat, giving the music an ever more universal feeling. I find the culmination of this maturity in “Once in a Lifetime,” which uses the powerful symbol of water to represent life, constantly flowing yet always the same. “Same as it ever was, same as it ever was,” Byrne intones, in that somewhat aloof, somewhat melancholy voice, and he's speaking to all of us. Very Heraclitan. This is necessarily followed up by “Animals,” which is just as profound in its absurdity.
“Psycho Killer,” on the other hand, provides probably the best example of their early sound, with its menacing and building bassline, one guitar doing the Sonic Youth ringing bell thing and another providing angular Gang of Four style screeching, and of course Byrne's demented vocals and lyrics which will permanently be entwined with American Psycho for me. All the tension of modern life is captured and released in this one song. “We are vain and we are blind/ I hate people when they're not polite.”