Ranking in Tongues
Mar. 17th, 2004 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jere7myVardibidian asked me to rank the Talking Heads albums, along with David Byrne's solo efforts, so as to provide some context for my excitement about Byrne's latest, Grown Backwards. It's a little tricky to linearize them, since DB has sprawled inelegantly over a huge tract of the musical map. How do I rank an 80s rhythm-heavy synth-art-rock album like Remain in Light beside an orchestral collection—inspired by factories—like The Forest? And then there is the tension between nostalgia (I danced to Swamp at my first 8th-grade dance) and novelty (Grown Backwards is so shiny!).
Well, if I were to tease out a common thread from his work, something that appeals to me, it's his benign outsider's perspective, his ability to be as equally moved by aluminum siding as by love, and as amused as much by the idea of courtship as by a funny hat. Throughout his career, he's been an ethnographer from another planet, observing humanity without judging us, and sending his own folk compositions home to his people—who happen to be us.
I'll try to keep that in mind when I make this list, as well as more concrete concerns like how often I listen to each one, and how gripped I am by the rhythms.
There's a fairly strong break between the halves of this list; the top eleven albums are all among my favorite albums of all time, and the bottom ten are albums I merely like. Actually, the last three are novelties—Bush of Ghosts is an album of sampled spoken pieces over rhythms, Knee Plays is chiefly spoken-word with David's "bouncy-bonky" compositions underneath, and Catherine Wheel, despite having some great songs like Big Blue Plymouth and What a Day That Was, is mostly a bouncy-bonky accompaniment for a Twyla Tharp dance routine. I rarely listen to them, though they're not without their good points.
It's a little odd to put what amounts to a live best-of collection at the top, but Stop Making Sense is probably my favorite album of all time; I never tire of listening to it, and the performances are passionate and unusual. At #2, Byrne's eponymous album best exemplifies his solo career, his alienness, his sense of humor, and the maturity of his compositional skills; it's beautifully rich and dreamlike. The late-middle Heads albums come next; they strike the best balance between irrepressible rocking and sophistication, and feature most of their "hits". (The only reason '77 and MSaBaF are so low is because of their roughness and lack of complexity.)
Feelings is the closest Byrne has come, solo, to the aural diversity and catchiness of the Heads; he experiments with a lot of sounds and modes, and most of them work. Uh-Oh is a comic strip of an album, hilarious and exuberant, and never fails to cheer me.
I find myself listening to The Forest, which is orchestral, fairly often when I write; I don't feel qualified to judge it, but it's potent. Rei Momo is his Latin-themed album, and while it's very bright and fun it doesn't really plumb any depths, at least not until the last track. I haven't (yet?) gotten into Look into the Eyeball, which feels like a B-side collection from the Feelings sessions, or Lead Us Not into Temptation, which is another mostly-instrumental sequence that came out only recently. The Name of This Band is Talking Heads is fine as far as it goes—it's an early concert collection—but it doesn't have any focus, and was released by the label as a stopgap. Fear of Music is an awkward bridge between early and late Heads, arty without yet being quite musical enough to support it, and Naked is their last album; both have great songs, but neither really got into my head the way the other Heads albums have.
Now, I put Growing Backwards rather high up; it may rise or fall, but as of 2 1/2 listens I like it a lot. It's not as much of a pop album as his other recent (non-orchestral) solo albums; while it is strongly influenced by techno and hip-hop and rock, the roots of the music seem to date back to his Catherine Wheel days...while the words owe much to David Byrne. It's odd, but catchy, off the expected arc of his albums; it feels very mature and confident. By way of example: it has a song about pirates, and two arias (Bizet and Verdi).
(I think I've covered just about everything DB released, except for one album of Latin covers I haven't heard. I've excluded collections like Sand in the Vaseline, which are fine introductions for the curious.)
Well, if I were to tease out a common thread from his work, something that appeals to me, it's his benign outsider's perspective, his ability to be as equally moved by aluminum siding as by love, and as amused as much by the idea of courtship as by a funny hat. Throughout his career, he's been an ethnographer from another planet, observing humanity without judging us, and sending his own folk compositions home to his people—who happen to be us.
I'll try to keep that in mind when I make this list, as well as more concrete concerns like how often I listen to each one, and how gripped I am by the rhythms.
- Stop Making Sense (TH live)
- David Byrne (DB)
- Speaking in Tongues (TH)
- Remain in Light (TH)
- Little Creatures (TH)
- Feelings (DB)
- Grown Backwards (DB)
- True Stories (TH)
- Uh-Oh (DB)
- More Songs about Buildings and Food (TH)
- '77 (TH)
- The Forest (DB orchestral)
- Rei Momo (DB)
- The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads (TH live)
- Look into the Eyeball (DB)
- Fear of Music (TH)
- Naked (TH)
- Lead Us Not into Temptation (DB soundtrack)
- My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (DB with Brian Eno)
- Music from The Knee Plays (DB)
- Music from The Catherine Wheel (DB soundtrack)
There's a fairly strong break between the halves of this list; the top eleven albums are all among my favorite albums of all time, and the bottom ten are albums I merely like. Actually, the last three are novelties—Bush of Ghosts is an album of sampled spoken pieces over rhythms, Knee Plays is chiefly spoken-word with David's "bouncy-bonky" compositions underneath, and Catherine Wheel, despite having some great songs like Big Blue Plymouth and What a Day That Was, is mostly a bouncy-bonky accompaniment for a Twyla Tharp dance routine. I rarely listen to them, though they're not without their good points.
It's a little odd to put what amounts to a live best-of collection at the top, but Stop Making Sense is probably my favorite album of all time; I never tire of listening to it, and the performances are passionate and unusual. At #2, Byrne's eponymous album best exemplifies his solo career, his alienness, his sense of humor, and the maturity of his compositional skills; it's beautifully rich and dreamlike. The late-middle Heads albums come next; they strike the best balance between irrepressible rocking and sophistication, and feature most of their "hits". (The only reason '77 and MSaBaF are so low is because of their roughness and lack of complexity.)
Feelings is the closest Byrne has come, solo, to the aural diversity and catchiness of the Heads; he experiments with a lot of sounds and modes, and most of them work. Uh-Oh is a comic strip of an album, hilarious and exuberant, and never fails to cheer me.
I find myself listening to The Forest, which is orchestral, fairly often when I write; I don't feel qualified to judge it, but it's potent. Rei Momo is his Latin-themed album, and while it's very bright and fun it doesn't really plumb any depths, at least not until the last track. I haven't (yet?) gotten into Look into the Eyeball, which feels like a B-side collection from the Feelings sessions, or Lead Us Not into Temptation, which is another mostly-instrumental sequence that came out only recently. The Name of This Band is Talking Heads is fine as far as it goes—it's an early concert collection—but it doesn't have any focus, and was released by the label as a stopgap. Fear of Music is an awkward bridge between early and late Heads, arty without yet being quite musical enough to support it, and Naked is their last album; both have great songs, but neither really got into my head the way the other Heads albums have.
Now, I put Growing Backwards rather high up; it may rise or fall, but as of 2 1/2 listens I like it a lot. It's not as much of a pop album as his other recent (non-orchestral) solo albums; while it is strongly influenced by techno and hip-hop and rock, the roots of the music seem to date back to his Catherine Wheel days...while the words owe much to David Byrne. It's odd, but catchy, off the expected arc of his albums; it feels very mature and confident. By way of example: it has a song about pirates, and two arias (Bizet and Verdi).
(I think I've covered just about everything DB released, except for one album of Latin covers I haven't heard. I've excluded collections like Sand in the Vaseline, which are fine introductions for the curious.)
Thank you
Date: 2004-03-17 07:42 pm (UTC)I see you rate complexity, that is, aural and structural complexity, pretty high. I rate MSaBaF, '77, and FoM higher than you do for their storytelling (not that the others don't have stories of their own, but it's different).
Anyway, thanks again. What with one thing and another, I may not buy the thing for a month or two, but I'm more inclined to make an effort than before.
Redintegro Iraq,
-V (http://www.kith.org/vardibidian/journal/).
Re: Thank you
Date: 2004-03-17 07:59 pm (UTC)I also have, but didn't rank, Jerry Harrison's The Red and the Black, which is a lot like David Byrne solo-lite. I never got much into Tom Tom Club. The only songs I have of theirs are on Stop Making Sense and Portable Music. (Sorry, Chris and Tina.)
Yes, I have the extended SMS, as well as the DVD with performances of Cities and Big Business/I Zimbra. I wouldn't have ranked it so high before, certainly. I wonder if having the visual memory to go with the album boosts its ranking in my mind. Hmm.
Caveat emptor: I believe the version of Grown Backwards I purchased is a limited edition sort of thing; make sure you find the one with the Lazy bonus track, if you're the sort of person who cares about value-added goodies.