Description
**New 2LP Deluxe Edition Available w/ Rarities!
New Edition: Double vinyl LP pressing. Returning to where it all began, Talking Heads proudly presents the expanded 2LP version of Talking Heads: 77. The 2LP features a new remaster of the original album on LP1, while LP2 features a collection of rarities encompassing outtakes and previously unreleased alternate versions, including the never before heard ‘Psycho Killer (Alternate Version)’ and ‘Pulled Up (Alternate “Pop” Version)’.
Though they were the most highly touted new wave band to emerge from the CBGB’s scene in New York, it was not clear at first whetherTalking Heads‘ Lower East Side art rock approach could make the subway ride to the midtown pop mainstream successfully. The leadoff track of the debut album,Talking Heads: 77, “Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town,” was a pop song that emphasized the group’s unlikely roots in late-’60s bubblegum, Motown, and Caribbean music. But the “Uh-Oh” gave away the group’s game early, with its nervous, disconnected lyrics andDavid Byrne‘s strained voice. All pretenses of normality were abandoned by the second track, asTalking Headsfinally started to sound on record the way they did downtown: the staggered rhythms and sudden tempo changes, the odd guitar tunings and rhythmic, single-note patterns, the non-rhyming, non-linear lyrics that came across like odd remarks overheard from a psychiatrist’s couch, and that voice, singing above its normal range, its falsetto leaps and strangled cries resembling a madman trying desperately to sound normal.Talking Headsthrew you off balance, but grabbed your attention with a sound that seemed alternately threatening and goofy. The music was undeniably catchy, even at its most ominous, especially on “Psycho Killer,”Byrne’ssupreme statement of demented purpose. Amazingly, that song made the singles chart for a few weeks, evidence of the group’s quirky appeal, but the album was not a big hit, and it remained unclear whetherTalking Headsspoke only the secret language of the urban arts types or whether that could be translated into the more common tongue of hip pop culture. In any case, they had succeeded as artists, using existing elements in an unusual combination to create something new that still managed to be oddly familiar. And that madeTalking Heads: 77a landmark album. -All Music Guide
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.