Talking Heads – Talking Heads: 77 – 1977
Not THE Talking Heads. Talking Heads. Important distinction. Like Smashing Pumpkins. Not THE Smashing Pumpkins. “Smashing” could be how they look, right?
Talking Heads is more of a commentary on the takeover of television. These are 2nd generation tv people. Still Boomers, but too young to have been the first teenagers. Able to look at the world with cynicism and the soul of artists.
One of the first CBGB breakthrough bands, TH’s first album opens with the bouncy “Uh oh, Love Comes to Town” which belies the tact they will take in the future. A peppy little tune for such a smartly cynical band. If Devo were plastic people embracing technology, Talking Heads were their white soul cousins. Not too surprising that Eno would have something to do with both bands at some point.
If you were drawn in by the pop confection opener you were going to be left scratching your head the rest of the way. The album is chock full of nervous energy, herky rhythms and vocal warbles as Byrne just isn’t comfortable singing yet.
The Side One closer, “No Confession” is just trying wayyy too hard to be ambitious and different. Side Two attempts to bring us back to pop but “The Book I Read” feels like a deep track and not a single.
By the time you get to the brilliant “Psycho Killer” you’re ready for it. Everything has led you there.
Talking Heads, based in NYC, would sort of become the soundtrack for that city in the 80s. One look at movies of the era like Something Wild and you can’t miss it. The steel drum sound, the faux-lypso, the appropriated black music by well-intentioned white people, it’s a melting pot. In the late 70s punk was embracing reggae, mainly cause punkers were hanging out in clubs where Don Letts was DJing and they fell in love with what he played. Had they not, would the Clash have turned to Reggae?
Would Talking Heads just be an anomaly? I don’t know.
The album opens as it closes, bookended by Heads pop. “Pulled Up” is one of the better tracks on the album, forward thinking, energized, I love it.
I heard :77 for the first time in 1982 just before heading off to college. It sounded dated to me then. It still does now.
To be honest, 77 gets a higher rating as a debut than it would if it was just another album.
I liken it to XTC if they were autistic.
Grade: B+
ASide: Uh Oh Love Comes to Town, Psycho Killer
BlindSide: Who Is It?, Pulled Up
