Talking Heads - The Best of Talking Heads
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Talking HeadsBrand: TALKING HEADS
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2004-08-17
Music Label: Rhino
Product features:
- TALKING HEADS THE BEST OF TALKING HEADS
- Love ->
- Building On Fire
- Psycho Killer
- Oh, Love Comes To Town
- Take Me To The River
- Found A Job
- Life During Wartime
- Heaven
- Memories Can't Wait
- Once In A Lifetime
- Houses In Motion
- This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
- Girlfriend Is Better
- Burning Down The House
- Road To Nowhere
- And She Was
- Wild Wild Life
- Blind
- (Nothing But) Flowers
Free Music Notes for The Best of Talking Heads
Free Music Review: The convergent boundary of "kooky" and "profound"
Hit: 5 Stars
I bought this CD this summer. I'm not a Talking Heads mega-fan by any means, but this CD transformed me. It became almost an addiction; I kept the CD in my car, and I found myself coming up with excuses to drive around and immerse myself in Talking-Heads-land whenever I felt pangs of Byrne-withdrawl. It was my own personal religious service, basically.
Let's talk about a few of the tracks.
2. Psycho Killer. Why is a song about a psycho killer so much fun? David Byrne has shown us convincing snippets of a killer's inner dialog... why am I not terrified? Why do I enjoy it so much? Why does Byrne seem to channel Kip from Napoleon Dynamite in the line, "Say something once -- why say it again?" So many questions.
3. Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town. So, there are a bajillion songs in the world about the agonizing experience of falling in love. But can the Talking Heads write one that manages to be zany and unique? Um, yes they can. Here's a hint: whenever the Talking Heads mention stockbrokers in their lyrics, the song is gonna be great. David Byrne doesn't have time to explain the banality of life in the professional/business/moneyish world. He just inserts the word "stockbroker" into songs whenever he wants to infuse us, the listeners, with the feeling of "ugh! banality!" -- and then he promptly subverts it -- because, hey, even stockbrokers fall in love. See also: Track 16, Wild Wild Life "Check out Mr. Businessman. . . on his way to the stock exchange..."
5. Found A Job. Many songs on this album are actually intense stories that deserve to be turned into full-length movies or novels. Instead, they are condensed into a few minutes of song. This song is about a couple who, after bickering over what to watch on TV, decide that they should make their own TV shows. Doing so saves their marriage. A lesson about creativity. There are not a ton of songs in the world that fall into the bickering-couple-makes-homemade-TV-shows genre.
6. Life During Wartime. Definitely one of those "should be a full-length movie" songs. Apart from the obviously catchy chorus, what I love most about this song are the lines at the end: "Don't get exhausted. I'll do some driving. You ought to get you some sleep." When you place them within the song's bizarre dystopian setting, they have to be some of the tenderest, kindest words ever sung.
9. Once In A Lifetime. Remember when I said that David Byrne doesn't have time to reflect on a life of banality? Just kidding! I actually don't know how to explain my love for this song. If I go ahead and say that I view it as a monumental achievement of humankind -- one that tens of thousands of years of human evolution have been leading up to, so that David Byrne might, miraculously, be born and raised and taught English, so that he might one day form the question, in an exasperatedly baffled voice, "Well, how did I get here?" -- if I say all that, you'd think I was going a little over the top. But this song is just... too... great. Also, you should watch the music video on youtube as often as possible.
11. This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody). For me, this song is less about the lyrics and more about the, well, melody, which leaves me feeling both eerie and contented. It's one of my favorites. It doesn't quite stand out among the giants of the CD like Life During Wartime or Once In A Lifetime, but it is nevertheless an integral part of the CD's tapestry.
14. Road To Nowhere. See, here's the thing. The Talking Heads are SO zany, SO kooky, and SO much fun, that they can manage to be intensely profound at the same time. And it's cool. It's not whiny or depressing. They pull it off. In this song especially, David Byrne holds our hand and walks us right to the cliff's edge of complete and utter nihilism... but it's ok, it's fun! And he lets out these raspy little whoops at the end of the song -- tiny, terrorized screams of alarm, addressed to LIFE ITSELF. But it's all in fun!
15. And She Was. I had heard this on the radio a billion times, of course, but when I listened to it on this CD, I finally LISTENED to it. And let me just have a moment of feminism, here. When was the last time you heard a song about a woman, sung by a man, and it WASN'T romantic/sexual? (OK, maybe Elton John's "Candle In The Wind," but that's all I can come up with.) David Byrne is not in love here. He's not particularly attracted to the subject of the song. He's singing about a person, who happens to be a woman, and he's putting himself in her head for a moment. Yes, "she's taking off her dress" -- but she's doing it for herself. I think it's about a woman tripping or something. But it passes my own personal song-version of the Bechdel Movie Test, and that's pretty cool.
16. Wild Wild Life. My theme song (or what I like to hope my theme song is). I get the feeling that the Talking Heads approach every song from a place of being ABSOLUTELY STARTLED TO BE ALIVE. In some cases, this leads to semi-depressing conclusions. At other times, like in this song, we get to celebrate life! Yeah!! There can hardly be a more celebratory song than this. Also, it's another music video worth youtubing if you get the chance.
18. (Nothing But) Flowers. Yes, this is later Heads, and it does feel different. But once again, they've condensed a complex sci-fi scenario that should be a full-length movie into a tiny song. I guess you can call it a high-concept song. The civilized world as we know it has ended, and all the hallmarks of modern suburbia (Dairy Queens, Pizza Huts, etc.) have become overgrown with wildlife. And the narrator MISSES the old ways, even though there are flowers everywhere. My favorite lines come when he's reminiscing about the old ways, and he says, "Years ago, I was an angry young man/ And I'd pretend that I was a billboard/ Standing tall by the side of the road/ I fell in love with the beautiful highway." Um, awesome. You get to question what beauty is, where it comes from, what is actually preventing us from experiencing beauty, etc., etc. You get the idea. All in all, a good way to round up the CD.
Basically, every song is a complete wonder-scape of imagination and fun... but also, more depth than my brain knows how to handle. Maybe it's not for everyone, but I know it most definitely IS for me. If I were a panda, this CD would be bamboo: I am biologically designed to voraciously consume it. So... yeah. 5 stars.
The Best of Talking Heads Poster
Formed in NYC in the mid-'70s by David Byrne, Chris Franz, Tina Weymouth, and ex-Modern Lover Jerry Harrison, the Talking Heads evolved out of their now-legendary humble beginnings at CBGB's to become one of the most adventurous and influential bands ever. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, the Heads' visionary, polyrhythmic sound daringly combined funk and punk, African beats, avant-garde minimalism, and pure pop. From their 1977 debut through their Brian Eno-produced classics to their '88 farewell, Naked, they both pushed artistic boundaries and delivered indelible radio hits like "Once In A Lifetime" and "Burning Down The House."Alternative Rock Music CDs
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