From the first, Talking Heads contribution to the avant-punk scene they helped create was their emphasis on rhythm over beat. While the Ramones rockers banged and Blondies blared, the Heads early songs pulsed, winding their way past jitteriness to achieve the compelling tension that defined a particular moment in rock & roll history — a moment when white rock fans wanted to dance so badly, and yet were so intimidated by the idea, that they started hopping straight up and down for instant relief. By 1978, punk and disco had divided the pop audience. What did Talking Heads do? They recorded Al Greens Take Me to the River. The gesture was a heroic one. Despite David Byrnes vocal restraint and certain puritanical tendencies in his lyrics to value work over pleasure (Artists Only, Dont Worry about the Government), Talking Heads never stopped learning from the sensuous music that existed in a world parallel to theirs. On 1979s Fear of Music, they made a defiant connection with funk and disco in I Zimbra and Life during Wartime, both of which aid in preparing us for Remain in Lights startling avant-primitivism. On Remain in Light, rhythm takes over. Each of the eight compositions adheres to a single guitar-drum riff repeated endlessly, creating what funk musicians commonly refer to as a groove. A series of thin, shifting layers is then added: more jiggly percussion, glancing and contrasting guitar figures, singing by Byrne that represents a sharp and exhilarating break with the neurotic and intentionally wooden vocals that had previously characterized all Talking Heads albums. In addition to its African influences, Remain in Light also flashes the ecstatic freedom of current (circa 1980) American funk, across which any number of complex emotions and topics can roam. In both Born under Punches (the Heat Goes On) and Crosseyed and Painless, the rhythm lurches about while always moving forward, thrust ahead by the tough, serene beat of the bass and percussion. Throughout, instruments are so tightly meshed that its often difficult to pick out what youre hearing---or even whos playing. As part of their lets-rethink-this-music attitude, Talking Heads occasionally play one anothers instruments, and guests as disparate as Robert Palmer and Nona Hendryx are enlisted. Far from being confusing, however, such density contributes greatly to the mesmerizing power exerted by these elaborate dance tunes. Though you can follow, to some extent, the story lines of, say, Listening Wind (in which an Indian stores up weaponry to launch an assault on plundering Americans) and the spoken fable, Seen and Not Seen, Remain in Lights lyrics are more frequently utilized to describe or embody abstract concepts. Thus, beneath the wild dance patterns of Crosseyed and Painless, there lurks a dementedly sober disquisition on the nature of facts that culminates in a hilarious, rapidly recited list of characteristics (Facts are simple and facts are straight/Facts are lazy and facts are late... ) that could go on forever ---and probably does, since the song fades out before the singer can finish reading whats on the lyric sheet. In all of this lies a solution to a problem that was clearly bothering David Byrne on Fear of Music: how to write rock lyrics that dont yield to easy analysis and yet arent pretentious. Talking Heads most radical attempt at an answer was the use of da-daist Hugo Balls nonsense words as a mock-African chant in I Zimbra. The strategy on Remain in Light is much more complicated and risky. In compositions like Born under Punches and Crosseyed and Painless, phrases are suggested and measured, repeated and turned inside out, in reaction to the spins and spirals of their organizing riff-melodies. Elsewhere, strings of words convey meaning only through Byrnes intonation and emphasis: his throaty, conspiratorial murmur in Houses in Motion adds implications you cant extract from lines as flyaway as Im walking a line--- Im thinking about empty motion... -Ken Tucker, Rolling Stone Dec.11, 1980
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:25:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015