-36%
Author: Talking Heads
Brand: WEA
Features:
- TALKING HEADS
- R&P INTERNACIONAL
- INTERNATIONAL
- MUSIC
Package Dimensions: 10x142x68
Release Date: 13-06-1984
Details: Amazon.com
This disc represents the bridge between Talking Heads’ first two herky-jerkier albums and the next two funky ones. Fear of Music is more than just a bridge, though. It’s the water under the bridge, the air, the animals, the cities the river flows through, and the heaven on top of it all: “…a place where nothing ever happens.” Plenty happens here, however. The CD starts out with its feet off the ground and both arms in the air: “I Zimbra” is all-out celebration. The rest of the songs are pretty much exercises in simplicity: one-word titles with music to match. (Witness the lightness of “Air,” the trippiness of “Drugs,” the “ooga”-ness of “Animals.”) David Byrne’s artful naiveté (“Hold the paper up to the light/Some rays pass right through”), coupled with the whole band’s musical playfulness (for example, the tuba on “Electric Guitar”), makes for fun fun fun. –Dan Leone
Product description
Talking Heads: David Byrne (vocals, guitar); Jerry Harrison (guitar, keyboards); Tina Weymouth (bass); Chris Frantz (drums, percussion). Additional personnel: Robert Fripp (guitar); Gene Wilder, Ari (congas); Brian Eno (sound effects, background vocals); Julie Last, The Sweetbreathes (background vocals). Principally recorded at Chris and Tina’s loft, Long Island City, Queens, New York. Personnel: Brian Eno (vocals, guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, background vocals); Sweetbreathes, Julie Last (vocals, background vocals); Robert Fripp (guitar); Gene Wilder, Ari Up (congas, percussion); David Byrne (background vocals). Recording information: Chris And Tina’s Loft, Long Island City. Unknown Contributor Roles: Chris Frantz; Jerry Harrison; Tina Weymouth. FEAR OF MUSIC is the point of transition between the angular art-school new wave of the Heads’ early work and the P-Funk-inspired modalism of their early-’80s output. While there’s nothing as funky or visionary as REMAIN IN LIGHT here, the album represents a step in a new direction. At the same time, the Heads’ white-knuckled neuroticism is pushed to the extreme here. Almost unrelentingly dark and paranoid-sounding, the tunes find Byrne at his most Anthony Perkins-like, and the interplay of the guitars, even more syncopated and thoughtfully arranged than on the previous album, provides a pointillistic landscape on which Byrne can let his twitchy persona run free. From the tense espionage tale of “Life During Wartime” to the global disaffection of “Cities,” Byrne and company seem wound so tight you wonder when they’ll snap. One of the only places to look for breathing room here is the funky, African-sounding “I Zimbra,” with its highlife-influenced guitars and tribal chanting. This tune also points the way to the mind-blowing innovations that were just around the corner on REMAIN IN LIGHT.
UPC: 075992742825
