Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food

Release Date: 21.7.1978

★★★★★ Tracks:
Thank You for Sending Me an Angel
With Our Love
The Good Thing
Artists Only
Take Me to the River

More Songs About Buildings and Food is easily my favorite ‘Heads record. The group is still in its rock’n’roll phase, but their sound is greatly enhanced with Brian Eno at the helm for the first time in what would prove to be a long, fruitful relationship between band and producer. Eno, still very early in his musical career, and riding the success in helping to shape the sounds of Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy,” had a keen ear for the direction in which the ‘Heads were attempting to take their music. On Buildings and Food he doesn’t want to fiddle much with the sound but rather tinker with the way it comes to your speakers. He tightens up their studio sessions and therefore the quality of the songs themselves, he gives the guitars a bit of a mechanical feel, and allows the spastic, nervous energy the band creates to seep through the recording. The results are fantastic; 11 of the weirdest, grooviest tracks to come out of the 70’s. “Thank You For Sending Me an Angel” is the perfect opener, but “With Our Love” is the ‘Heads’s mission statement; a computerized, rinky-dink guitar charges ahead while David Byrne neurotically sings of the strange complexities of relationships between male and female.

The album culminates in what might be the best track of the album, a cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River.” The Talking Heads slow it down, strip it of its brass section, add a little synth, and Byrne adds his eccentricities to perfection. Alongside "Remain in Light" and "Burning Down the House," "Take Me to the River" would end up being one of the most recognizable songs the 'Heads ever produced.

Talking Heads - '77

Release Date: 16.9.1977

★★★★★ Tracks:
Uh-oh, Love Comes to Town
New Feeling
The Book I Read
Psycho Killer

As creative as the Talking Head’s were when they started to implement afrofunk on Fear of Music and Remain in Light, I enjoy their earlier work a lot more, when they were a more straightforward rock’n’roll group. But even in the beginning I imagine the 'Heads are probably one of the first bands to be classified as ‘art rock.' While the label has always sounded rather pretentious, it just seems to make sense when identifying groups that write cerebral and strange lyrics or compose more complex instrumentation thank your average pop/rock outfit, or in the case of the 'Heads, both. And really, David Byrne seems like a pretty pretentious guy anyways. But as evidenced by ’77, the entire record being written by Byrne, he backs that arrogance up with some of the most unique music of the late 70's and early 80's.

The guitar work here is elaborate, and implements a bit of the funk they would further incorporate a few years later. Byrne talks a bit about the government (“Some civil servants are just like my family” in “Don’t Worry About the Government”) about every day problems (“they say compassion is a virtue / But I don’t have the time” on “No Compassion”), about how great he is (“I’m a know it all / I’m the smartest man around” on “Uh-oh, Love Comes to Town”), but one of the odd, most reoccurring themes is his fascination with social politics between men and women (“Girls ask and I define decision / Boys ask and I describe their function” on “Tentative Decisions”), and all of these lyrics further the image of the frontman as a rather distraught weirdo; the anxious, rambling voice the sound of a man who should be medicated. His neuroses are our gain though. And who doesn’t love to give it their all when singing “Psycho Killer” on Rock Band?

XTC - Fossil Fuel (Disc 1)

Release Date: September, 1996

★★★★★ Tracks:

Science Friction

Statue of Liberty

Making Plans for Nigel

Love at First Sight


I generally don't like "Greatest Hits" collections. I'm the meticulous type of person who likes to hear an album in order and in its entirety, at least for the first couple of listens. I just don't feel I am properly digesting the material otherwise. A collection of singles not only cuts an artist's work in to bits and pieces, but it's also not often ordered chronologically, and when a band has such an extensive catalogue like that of XTC's, spanning decades, it's nearly impossible to pinpoint what they sounded like during a specific period in time. So when I found out that XTC's Fossil Fuel was in chronological order, covering 31 tracks from 1977-1992, I ignored my disdain for an album's worth of singles and decided it would be the best place to start.

And I wasn't disappointed. I can't believe it took me 29 years to try out any of XTC's music! Not many in the U.S. have, as their success in the UK, Canada, and Australia has not carried over to the States. Other than "Senses Working Overtime" (Mandy Moore's a fan, and covered the track on her 2003 album Coverage) peaking at 10 on the charts, none of their singles cracked the top 10 until 1989, when "Mayor of Simpleton" climbed to #1 on the Rock charts. I'm not sure why, either. Almost every song on Fossil Fuel's first disc is incredibly catchy. The song I most recognize and one of my favorites is "Making Plans for Nigel." It holds up infinitely more than most the singles hitting the charts in 1979, like "My Sharona" and "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy." We also get to see an early music video here, and a very odd one at that. How much fun is it to sing along to this?



The first three tracks on Fossil Fuel are taken from XTC's first LP, White Music, and they're phenomenal. I haven't heard the whole album yet, but these songs sound like the UK's answer to the Talking Heads, and a collection of tracks Hot Hot Heat have been mimicking since their existence. My favorite of the bunch is "Statue of Liberty." It was their first ever single, but banned in the UK soon after its release because of its suggestive lyrics. Or I guess, suggestive in terms of 1978:

"I leaned right over to kiss your stoney book.
A little jealous of the ships with whom you flirt.
A billion lovers with their cameras snap to look.
And in my fantasy I sail beneath your skirt."

The other track I want to mention is "Love at First Sight," which comes from their fourth album Black Sea, released in 1980. It's just such a great single, with great guitar hooks that became so prevalent over the course of my listening to Fossil Fuel. It's a song like this that bands like Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, and the Killers were attempting to recreate during the 80's revival phenomenon a few years ago. None of them could create one quite as good though:

The period covering 1977-1980 has turned out to be one of my favorites for rock'n'roll. And just recently discovering XTC only adds to a collection of artists who were putting out some incredibly innovative music at the time. Not only was punk rock gaining momentum, but it was a time when the seeds for alternative music were planted; when an undercurrent of really creative music was pushing its way to the surface, and when much of mainstream music had become entirely too reliant on marketing -- a theme that we've become all too familiar with.

Disc 2 is up next.