Disco de Talking Heads: “True Stories [Digipak]”

I first got into the Talking Heads at 14, and I'm 24 now, so you can imagine with the music scene the way it was in 1997 that middle school bullies would find the idea of a fellow student into the music from "I Love The 80's" ripe for the pickin'. I was actually embarrassed of this band (and most other 80's bands) and put them away until I got to college and realized what I'd been missing. But this stands as the first Talking Heads record I got, so I saw the previous reviews and decided to take a stand for this, my sentimental favorite for Talking Heads as a group.

This entire project (book, film, and record) was years ahead of its time. The newest movie that I can think would fit into this mold would be "A Mighty Wind," down to the structure, characters, and even financial backers (Karen Murphy worked on both films). I read on another site that this particular album should never had existed, but was made (in 5 days!) to appease the financiers for the flick. For five days' worth of work, this is admittedly a pretty damn fine record. Very 80's, of course, but as with the entirety of the Heads' catalog the production techniques date the recordings instantly. This is without a doubt the POPPIEST that the Heads have ever sounded in the studio, but the songs are still quite good (especially when compared to everything else that hit the Top 40 in 1986). It's not their best (hell, for me nothing in the studio touches either one of the recently expanded live albums), and most people don't like this one because of the (deserved) legacy left behind by the preceding six records. But as a sentimental favorite to this fan, cut this one some slack. As David himself says at the end of "The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads," "Once again, you can dance if you want to." And really, what's so wrong with a mid-80's dance record by people who actually know how to make one?

(Further recommended listening: check out the artist rosters for Sire, Slash, Epitaph and Virgin Records from 1976 to 1996.)

After the early 80's David Byrne gradually moved the band in much more of a pop type musical direction than the funk oriented one before hand. Now that didn't mean the band lost any and all of the captivating elements to their sound. During 1986 David and the band stared in a film to which this album shared a title. While not an enormous commercial hit,it tended to stay with the person who say it. And it was in fact criticaly acclaimed and probably got a lot of word of mouth too. This soundtrack,featuring the bands versions of songs that were sung mostly by the actors in the movie was in fact a lot more illustrative of the action in the film than even most soundtracks. Not to mention the music's vibrant and colorful atmosphere.

Now I would'nt describe this as rock,or new wave,or funk or even 80's music. Actually it's kind of those and a lot of things really. "Love For Sale" is the most guitar oriented song here leading the way. "Puzzlin' Evidence" brings out a heavy pop-gospel flavor complete with choir. "Hey Now" and "Radio Head" have a heavy tex mex rhythmic flavor to both of them and have qualities that are almost singalong in quality along with strong hooks. The slow west indian voodoo polyrhythms is the funkiest tune here (also presented as a bonus track sung by Pop Staples as in the film). "People Like Us" is less country/western than a dance-rock type tune with a twangy guitar part and one of my favorites here. "Dream Operator" and the closing "City Of Dreams" are the ballads here and have very epic hooks. "Wild Wild Life" is the deserved hit,an upbeat dance-rocker with the strongest hook on the album.

Bonus tracks here include a more extened mix of "Wild Wild Life" and the Tito Larriva vocal of "Radio Head"...which I find somewhat more interesting than Talking Heads version. Overall the music captures the different characters in the film and them overlooking their differences to build a community. At this point there was a lot of discord in the band. In particular between Tina Weymouth and David Byrne. But you'd never know it with this album. As with the movie,there's a lot of commentary on 80's pop culture. But that's as far as it goes. No opinion,positive and negative or offered. Just that "Byrnes eye view of the world" that the film presents that even has a mildly wild eyed,youthful outlook to it. And the music actually grows as a more vibrant and colorful entity the more you listen to it too.

If you like a few of the Talking head's hits and you're thinking about picking up an album but dont know where to begin. Begin here. This is a good place to start with solid songs you will not hear on the radio.

this medicore cd is helped by the 5.1 sound bringing it up from a 3 to a 4

There's no getting around the fact that 1986 was one of the single worst years in popular

music/popular culture, and one of the final nails in the alternative coffin of New Wave was

the release of this album. The publicity images of the band in yuppie regalia was a lame

attempt at irony, yet the TRUE STORIES album itself is far more contradictory to the

"Talking Heads" ethos than their late-period image suggested. There is something rotten

at work here, from the stiff-rock opener "Love for Sale" to the made-for-MTV schmaltz of

"Wild Wild Life" to the brain-dead closer "City of Dreams." This from the same guy who

wrote "The Big Country," "Heaven," and "The Overload"? What the?!?? The best that can be said is that a couple of the songs are "nice."

Little Creatures was passable, but it signaled an uneasy turn for the band, from

uncompromising art rock darlings to mediocre oddities left spinning in the perpetual video

rotation. Naked, while an uneven album, salvaged a good deal of what was great about

the edgy collaboration between Byrne and /Weymouth/Harrison/Frantz, a masterful multi-

rhythmic mixture of solid percussive drive and head injury quirk. But in between Stop

Making Sense and their swan song, this band was effectively lost in the wilderness.