Much to Homer Simpson\u2019s dismay, rock and roll did not achieve perfection in 1974. But he wasn\u2019t off by much. 1977 could lay claim to the \u201cbest year ever\u201d for rock. Just for the punk genre itself, seminal albums like the Ramones\u2019 Rocket To Russia<\/i>, the Clash\u2019s self-titled album, Television\u2019s Marquee Moon<\/i>, Wire\u2019s Pink Flag<\/i> and The Sex Pistol\u2019s Never<\/i> Mind The Bollocks, Here\u2019s The Sex Pistols<\/i> redefined not only how rock could be played but who could play it (basically any one who can get three chords below his or her belt). <\/p>\n
Punk allegedly was started as a reaction against both disco and \u201cmammoth\u201d rock acts such as The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. However, just as quickly as punk arrived, there were groups within its circle that challenged punk\u2019s rigid ethics. Elvis Costello, Television and Wire proved that while anyone could form a punk band, it\u2019d sure as hell help if the members were musically inclined. <\/p>\n
In terms of being musically accomplished, the members of the Talking Heads were miles away from most of their punk contemporaries. Listening to their debut now, it\u2019s hard to imagine how Talking Heads: 77<\/i> even qualified as \u201cpunk.\u201d On the lead-off track, the band sounds more suited for a Calypso bar than the CBGB, where they routinely opened for the Ramones. They are one of the few punk bands at the time that sound like they were more influenced by Parliament Funkadelic than The Stooges or The Velvet Underground. <\/p>\n
The lyrics on Talking Heads: 77<\/i> were among the Talking Heads\u2019 most concrete. In \u201cDon\u2019t Worry About the Government,\u201d David Byrne foresaw the rise of the yuppie culture of the \u201880s: \u201cMy building has every convenience \/ It\u2019s going to make life easy for me \/ It\u2019s going to be easy to get things done \/ I will relax with my loved ones\u2026\u201d But instead of the sneering nihilism of Johnny Rotten, Byrne\u2019s nervous, edgy and almost tender vocals give a complex layer to the character in the song. <\/p>\n
Though the members of the Talking Heads lived slightly more sheltered lives than most of their punk peers (meeting in art school can do that), the band had no trouble nailing the fear and menace in the streets of New York City in the late 1970\u2019s with the song \u201cPsycho Killer.\u201d The famous opening \u201cI can\u2019t sleep \u2018cause my bed\u2019s on fire \/ Don\u2019t touch me, I\u2019m a real live wire\u201d has been used to describe both the infamous Son Of Sam killer as well as Taxi Driver<\/i>\u2019s antihero Travis Bickle. <\/p>\n
Their debut album solidified the Talking Heads as one of the most groundbreaking bands to make a dent in the charts in the \u201880s. The album was such an innovation that their next two albums, More Songs About Buildings<\/i> And Food<\/i> and Fear Of Music, <\/i>managed to be just as critically acclaimed, even though the band didn\u2019t move far away from the template they set with their debut. With an album as good as Talking Heads: 77<\/i>, though, you could hardly blame them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":29879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7876],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41498","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-talking-heads","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41498"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41498"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}