BRIAN ENO & DAVID BYRNE: MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS

I've never cared for The Talking Heads or David Byrne's vocals at all, so years ago when I picked up this album I remember feeling kind of scared, like I might be wasting my money. I was very wrong.

This collaboration effort of Brian Eno and David Byrne is fantastically funky, noisy, and partially hip-hop inspired (or maybe this album helped inspire hip-hop, which kind of seems more likely). There are also traces of world music, and plenty of spoken-word clips from various sources. This album isn't so much for creating mental imagery or for making ambient background noise (as Eno's other works tend to be), but is more about creating a collage of sound that is almost assaulting with a punk attitude of a persistent nature that is hard not to respect and pay attention to.

Aside from David Byrne, some more exciting names from the progressive rock community show up, such as Percy Jones, Robert Fripp, and Phil Collins (the same "super group" of musicians found on Another Green World. Those three musicians among the others on this album really add touches to this album that Eno and Byrne themselves wouldn't have been able to add, which would most likely make this album less enjoyable. Fortunately, this album is incredibly enjoyable and upbeat, not to mention slightly manic.