It may seem odd that Talking Heads chose to release a double-live album after only putting out four studio discs. While their success was growing slowly, one would be hard-pressed to say that David Byrne and crew were superstars\u2026 yet. (That tag would come with the release of Speaking In Tongues<\/i> one year later.)<\/p>\n
But the release of this set did come at the right time for the band. They were in the midst of a hiatus following the groundswell of interest following their Remain In Light<\/i> album, and they had broken away from long-time producer Brian Eno. So, while they re-charged their creative batteries and tried to find their own way in the musical world, this set filled the gap by showcasing the gradual change in the band from quirky quartet to polished band with guest musicians filling in the holes a four-piece just couldn\u2019t cover.<\/p>\n
Ironically, it\u2019s the rawness of the \u201cquirky quartet\u201d that is the most charming aspect of this disc \u2013 though I tend to prefer the original release, not the 2004 re-issue from Rhino, which almost doubles the original size of the release. By the time Byrne and crew hit what had to seem like the \u201cbig-time,\u201d the sound, while still good, sometimes seemed a little over-polished.<\/p>\n
The first half of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads<\/i> focuses on two specific concerts \u2013 one recorded for WCOZ in 1977, the other recorded in This particular set assumes the listener is familiar with the early works of Talking Heads \u2013 specifically, Talking Heads \u201977<\/i> and More Songs About Buildings And Food<\/i>. If you\u2019re not very familiar with early songs like \u201cPulled Up,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Worry About The Government\u201d and \u201cThe Book I Read,\u201d then you\u2019re in for both a culture shock and a hell of a surprise. For on the 2004 re-issue, these 19 songs showcase a band that is definitely hungry for attention, and not willing to compromise their own artistic vision to get your attention. It\u2019s for that reason that I found the first half of this disc so absorbing.<\/p>\n And while I do appreciate hearing how a song like \u201cPsycho Killer\u201d underwent a bit of a metamorphosis as the band\u2019s stature and fame grew (compared to the raw version from \u201977), I can\u2019t say that the recordings from 1980 and 1981 move my spirit in the same way that the early stuff does. Maybe it\u2019s because the familiarity with songs like \u201cOnce In A Lifetime,\u201d \u201cTake Me To The River\u201d and \u201cLife During Wartime\u201d makes me want to hear the originals in all their studio majesty, not what an expanded lineup could perform in the limits of the live setting. Make no mistake, these aren\u2019t bad songs; it\u2019s just that familiarity breeds expectations that these, simply, cannot live up to \u2013 which is not their fault at all.<\/p>\n I do, though, wonder why the 2004 re-issue chooses to truncate \u201cCrosseyed And Painless,\u201d cutting over a minute off from the original 1982 version. Sorry, but in this day and age, I consider tampering with the original versions of songs to be a cardinal sin.<\/p>\n To say that the second half of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads<\/i> is boring isn\u2019t quite true \u2013 though sometimes it does feel like blowing up an album from 17 original tracks to 33 on the reissue is a bit of bloatware. And, admittedly, it is a lot to get through in one sitting \u2013 I would almost recommend listening to this album one disc at a time, at different times. In all fairness, there are some wonderful performances on the second disc \u2013 \u201cAnimals,\u201d \u201cCities,\u201d \u201cWarning Sign\u201d and \u201cI Zimbra\u201d all shine. But it sometimes does seem like Byrne and crew are merely satisfied with the level of success they\u2019ve found, and that hunger doesn\u2019t seem as urgent as it did just a few years prior.<\/p>\n For any flaws this album \u2013 either version, for that matter \u2013 may have, The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads<\/i> is an interesting listen, as it captures the band right on the cusp of hitting the big time \u2013 and I honestly don\u2019t think even they knew how popular they were about to become. It\u2019s an interesting snapshot of four years\u2019 worth of music, and while it\u2019s hard to get through in one shot, it\u2019s an experience that even casual fans of Talking Heads should go through at least once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7876],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41504","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-talking-heads","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41504","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41504"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}