Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Talking HeadsEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: Warner Bros / Wea
Soundtracks:
- Thank You For Sending Me An Angel
- With Our Love
- The Good Thing
- Warning Signs
- The Girls Want To Be With The Girls
- Found A Job
- Artists Only
- I'm Not In Love
- Stay Hungry
- Take Me To The River
- The Big Country
Free Music Notes for More Songs About Buildings and Food
Free Music Review: (3.5 stars) The "difficult second album" in all its glory
Hit: 3 Stars
This album is musical stew. Now, at first glance, my first sentence may make about as much sense as the album's name, which is one of my favorite album titles ever. But the stretch from tracks two through nine pretty much runs together for me. It's like a stew, and well, I enjoy parts of the stew more than others.
First, let's talk about our pre- and post-stew tracks. You've got the charged-up, catchy New Wave rocker "Thank You For Sending Me an Angel" - one of my favorite Talking Heads songs, and certainly the best on the album. The two post-stew songs are quite good as well: the funky cover of "Take Me to the River", a just Top 40 hit for the group; and "The Big Country", a country-New Wave hybrid that mocks rural American values.
Then you've got the stew. The stew is overall a bland mix, with some excellent flavors (the dual rhythm-guitar attack of "Warning Sign" - I dismissed it in a previous review, but it's grown on me slightly, though it's not a favorite; "Artists Only", a great satire of pretentious avant-garde artists; the quirky, funny "Found a Job"), but there are lumps of it I could do without ("I'm Not in Love", with poor lyrics and a forgettable melody; the inane "With Our Love"; the underwritten vamping of "Stay Hungry", which exists on a great live version on The Name of This Band is Talking Heads). But none of the high points are extremely high - rather, just tiny bits of them jump out at me and the rest bugs me (an example being the, for lack of better term, angular vocal on "Warning Sign" - really, outside of the double-rhythm guitar attack it's not fantastic; and quirkiness can't keep "Found a Job" going for five minutes), and the low points, other than "I'm Not in Love", aren't really THAT low. Again, it's like a stew. Even when some flavors stand out, it's only in a slight, but still noticeable manner. You know what I mean? There are two other songs - "The Good Thing" and "The Girls Want to be with the Girls", but they more or less exist. The only thing that really strikes me about "The Good Thing" is how dorky the lyrics are. The long "stew" stretch that I am describing is all very jumpy, rhythmic, and sometimes catchy, with slight avant-garde production by Brian Eno, who was doing his first and by far least experimental job behind the controls with these New Wave nerds. It's interesting in theory, and "Artists Only" is just a flat-out good song, but it's also muddled.
Okay, I see the influence of More Songs About Board Games and Beer - it's hard to imagine R.E.M.'s first four albums without the "stew" section - and "Thank You For...", "Take Me to the River" and "The Big Country" (plus maybe "Artists Only") are classics no matter how you slice it. But overall this is the weakest of the group's first few albums. I mean, I like it, but not as much as I like Remain in Light (one of fifty favorite records ever), Fear of Music, or The Name of This Band is Talking Heads.
Okay, now I'd like to ask where the title comes from. I've heard three different stories. The first, and most common, is that a critic dismissed '77 as "A bunch of songs about buildings and food" (let's look at the song titles... "No Compassion"; "Don't Worry About the Government"; "Psycho Killer"... - oh yeah, there was a b-side from the period titled "Love -> a Building on Fire", but that didn't even make the album even though it should've). Another story I've heard is that the comment came from a friend of the band's; a third is that it was a joke the band made; a fourth is that it's a jab at the "sophomore slump" theory. Which to believe? Ah!!! Okay, I'm done.
More Songs About Buildings and Food Poster
Choosing former Roxy Music member and David Bowie collaborator Brian Eno to produce them, Talking Heads expanded their sound greatly for their 1978-released second album. While most associated Eno with hi-tech, electronic fare, he surprisingly brought out the more organically rhythmic side of the Heads' material. With Jerry Harrison's keyboards playing a more pronounced role--most notably on their spirited hit cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River"--and drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth powering the band through tracks like "Stay Hungry" and "Warning Sign," leader David Byrne sounded more relaxed and "normal," even as he wandered through such high-concept works as "Artists Only" and the sprawling "Big Country." --Billy AltmanAlternative Rock Music CDs
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