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Talking Heads - Talking Heads: 77 CD (album) cover

TALKING HEADS: 77

Talking Heads

 

Prog Related

3.64 | 160 ratings

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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk
2 stars good pop/rock band , but absolutely NOTHING PROG, no matter what some would have you believe !!!

Debut album from an average pop group that would evolve into an inventive group in a few years, but right now, these guys have the occasional flash of brilliance, but it's only on a few songs per album on the first few. The group is mainly carried by main songwriter, singer and guitarist David Byrne, who has an obvious influence from Latin American musics and African rhythms, and while the group plays some post-punk pop that can also be called New Wave, the ethnic influences are sometimes evident, sometimes more discreet. Obviously the rest of the group is quite fitting to play those toned-down African rhythms, but drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth (playing often keyboards on stage) are more than capable, but never dazzling. Guitarist, keyboardist and back-up singer Jerry Harrison completes the group and make a fairly versatile Babbling Heads group, that seemed to lack inspiration on the debut album's artwork

Indeed the opening track is one of many that are fairly jumpy (almost danceable) and enthusiastic (more for the band than me), but it's nothing for prospective progheads. One can maybe say that the inclusion of these ethnic elements was groundbreaking in the pure pop medium, but in other Western music circles this had happened quite a while ago. One of the album's midlight (can't really speak of "highlight" in 77) is the Psycho Killer tune, with its binary rhythm, but with a semblance of a good guitar solo. The succession of those upbeat mid-tempo tracks can become quite tiresome as they are all rather samey-sounding, despite an odd instrument here and there (African instruments, horn and a cello) and the individual songs find their groove immediately, but stay inside it until the track ends, leaving few space for real instrumental interplay solos and breaks.

The deluxe double-disc remastered version includes two of unfinished (and still instrumental) studio tracks from the album sessions and a bunch of single tracks, whether A or B-side, which add some extra value to those that really enjoy this type of aural torture. The DVD tackles the same album in 5.1 mix, plus different bonus tracks and has two filmed concert extracts which give a good but very amateur-ish (film footage) apercu of their live outings at the time. Indeed Pulled Up is a '78 hand-held camera excerpt from the back of the crowd, zooming sometimes inappropriately on the wrong TH member, while Feel It In My Heart is definitely more competent filming from a pre-debut album NY gig, but sill not professional, but does it matter that much anyway?Happily enough, the Speaking Heads will get much better than this first album, but as Rome wasn't built in one day, the TH will not reach maturity until the fourth RIL album. Unfortunately, we're far away with 77.

Sean Trane | 2/5 |

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