CD Odyssey Disc 700: Talking Heads

When I got home tonight there were still three songs still to play on this next album, so I just lay down on the couch and let them wash over me. I suppose I could’ve gone another day before writing the review, but I was eager after five days to move on.

Also, I was eager to reach this latest milestone – my 700^th album review! I’ll do a recap of the journey so far, but for now, let’s stick to the matter at hand.

Disc 700 is…. Popular Favorites: Sand in the Vaseline

Artist: Talking Heads

Year of Release: 1992 but with music from 1977 to 1988

What’s up with the Cover? Close ups of some instruments and audio equipment in the background, a big text box in the foreground. I would characterize this cover as inoffensive, but kinda dumb.

How I Came To Know It: My friend Greg bought this album when we lived together back in the early nineties and it got a fair bit of play. Like a lot of music Greg bought back then, I went and got my own copy after we moved into our own places.

How It Stacks Up:  I like that the Talking Heads called their best of album “Popular Favorites” which is a better way to characterize a compilation record. Regardless, ‘best of’ albums don’t stack up on the Odyssey – they aren’t real records.

Rating: 700 albums in some things remain constant – in this case, the fact that ‘best of’ albums don’t get a rating, just a review.

When you are on the cutting edge of a movement called New Wave, you know you are a trend setter, and that is exactly what the Talking Heads prove on “Popular Favorites.” This music sounds like very little else you’ll hear, and yet never seems jarring or out of place.

The first thing that always strikes me with the Talking Heads is the importance of the bass and drums in their sound. Their songs at their core are rock and roll, but their clever use of rhythm makes you feel like you’ve never heard it before.

In places, they sound like they are channeling a proto-disco funk groove from the early seventies, but there is a deeper tribal beat that makes them like something you might hear around a tribal fire in Africa. For this Chris Frantz (drums) and Tina Weymouth (bass) deserve a big shout out – something the rhythm section rarely gets.

It isn’t all beats and bangs, though. They meld this sound with very smartly written melodies that are along for the ride on the beat just like the rest of us are. A lot of New Wave comes off as emotionally distant. By contrast at their core the Talking Heads is so clearly celebratory you can’t help but get infected with their enthusiasm. I wish other similar acts were able to do the same.

And while I’m on this particular rant, modern indie bands could learn a lot from David Byrne about how to sing in a sharp, clipped style and still feel like you give a damn about what you’re saying. This is even more impressive given how obscure and sometimes secondary the lyrics to Talking Heads songs are. I still don’t know what “Psycho Killer” is about, for example – although I think that whole “I hate people when they’re not polite” section feels like they’re channelling Hannibal Lechter. The books came out before the album and the movies after, so I couldn’t tell you which came first. But I digress…

Back to the music, which while not lyrically overwhelming, is perfect for the mood it establishes within the overall structure of the songs. The whimsical and slightly perverse “Stay Up Late” perfectly captures the diabolical glee of keeping a baby up past its bedtime. “Don’t Trust the Government” combines a lock-step institutional beat with lyrics that express a strange glee for bureaucracy.

This tension is at the heart of the Talking Heads’ music, and “Popular Favorites” is a great representation of their work across their whole career. My own favorite songs on the album span a run of nine of the band’s eleven years’ worth of records, which speaks well for their consistency.

Oddly, while I love this album, I’m not rushing out to drill through their studio collection. I can’t put my finger on why exactly. My friend Greg also owned their 1985 record, “Little Creatures” and I remember liking it. At the same time, I remember mostly liking the songs that made it onto “Popular Favorites.” This is always the danger of having a greatest hits package, and one of the reasons I generally discourage it.

Maybe one day I’ll take my own advice and drill through their collection and see if it is worth me expanding my horizons. For now I’m strangely (and uncharacteristically) happy with this collection as is.

Best tracks: I Want To Live (1977), Psycho Killer (1977), Don’t Worry About the Government (1977), I Zimbra (1979), Once in a Lifetime (1981), Swamp (1983), And She Was (1985), Stay Up Late (1985), Road to Nowhere (1985), Wild Wild Life (1986), City of Dreams (1986).

11 is a lot of tracks but there were 33 on the compilation and they did say popular favourites…