One of America’s most underrated bands ever?

One of America’s most underrated bands ever?

by Newhart

The Talking Heads won’t ever be ranked up there with the E Street Band, Grateful Dead, the Eagles, or Pearl Jam as one of the best American bands ever, but David Byrne may have the most raw talent above any of them. I consider him a mad scientist/genius who writes both quirky and complex lyrics and was the driving force behind the band and leader. When he felt the band lost its creativity, he quit and that was basically the end of some great music. Once, I heard Pierre Robert, famed dj at WMMR, once say that Byrne was offered millions of dollars to reform the band years ago, and he refused. I’ll always respect him for that; now only if Mick Jagger would do the same, but I digress.

We all know their big hits, like Take Me to the River, Psycho Killer, Once in a Lifetime, Burning Down the House, And She Was, Stay Up Late, Life During Wartime, etc. Personally, I prefer the 70′s version of the Heads, as they were more edgy and angrier than the fluffy 80′s hits. I think Byrne felt this also and was becoming disenchanted towards the 80′s version of the band. Perhaps he didn’t feel the same artistic(Byrne was an art school student)quality as the band who once played New York’s famous CBGB side-by-side with Blondie, the Ramones, the excellent Patti Smith Group, and the Misfits. Brian Eno, another influential musician and producer, helped produce a few albums and is close friends with Byrne.

Enjoy these 2 tunes from their debut Talking Heads: 77; Rolling Stone magazine picked this #290 of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The first song, Book I Read, is perhaps my favorite song from them:

- FM

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Posted by newhart on Oct 25 2010. Filed under OT - Newhart's Music Vault. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry