Talking Heads – Speaking in Tongues LP

Description

Talking Headsfound a way to open up the dense textures of the music they had developed withBrian Enoon their two previous studio albums forSpeaking in Tongues, and were rewarded with their most popular album yet. Ten backup singers and musicians accompanied the original quartet, but somehow the sound was more spacious, and the music admitted aspects of gospel, notably in the call-and-response of “Slippery People,” andJohn Lee Hooker-style blues, on “Swamp.” As usual,David Byrnedeterminedly sang and chanted impressionistic, nonlinear lyrics, sometimes by mix-and-matching clichs (“No visible means of support and you have not seen nothin’ yet,” he declared on “Burning Down the House,”the Heads‘ first Top Ten hit), and the songs’ very lack of clear meaning was itself a lyrical subject. “Still don’t make no sense,”Byrneadmitted in “Making Flippy Floppy,” but by the next song, “Girlfriend Is Better,” that had become an order — “Stop making sense,” he chanted over and over. Some of his charming goofiness had returned since the overly seriousRemain in LightandFear of Music, however, and the accompanying music, filled with odd percussive and synthesizer sounds, could be unusually light and bouncy. The album closer, “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody),” even sounded hopeful. Well, sort of. Despite their formal power,Talking Heads‘ preceding two albums seemed to have painted them into a corner, which may be why it took them three years to craft a follow-up, but onSpeaking in Tongues, they found an open window and flew out of it. -All Music Guide