Rolling Stone
By Ken Tucker | December 11, 1980
Seldom in pop-music history has there been a larger gap between what black and white audiences are listening to than there is right now. While blacks are almost entirely uninterested in the clipped, rigid urgency of the New Wave, it's doubtful that more than a small percentage of Rolling Stone's predominantly white readership knows anything at all about the summer's only piece of culture-defining music, Kurtis Blow's huge hit, "The Breaks." Such a situation is both sad and ironic, because rarely have the radical edges of black and white music come closer to overlapping. On one hand, the Gang of Four utilize their bass guitar every bit as prominently and starkly as the curt bass figures that prod the spoken verses in "The Breaks." On the other, Chic producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards choose to make Diana Ross sound as sullen and alienated as Deborah Harry. None of this has escaped the notice of Talking Heads, however, and Remain in Light is their brave, absorbing attempt to locate a common ground in today's divergent, often hostile musical community.
From the first, Talking Heads' contribution to the avant-punk scene they helped create was their emphasis on rhythm over beat. While the Ramones' rockers banged and Blondie's blared, the Heads' early songs pulsed, winding their way past jitteriness to achieve the compelling tension that defined a particular moment in rock & roll history — a moment when white rock fans wanted to dance so badly, and yet were so intimidated by the idea, that they started hopping straight up and down for instant relief. By 1978, punk and disco had divided the pop audience. What did Talking Heads do? They recorded Al Green's "Take Me to the River." The gesture was a heroic one.
Despite David Byrne's vocal restraint and certain puritanical tendencies in his lyrics to value work over pleasure ("Artists Only," "Don't Worry about the Government"), Talking Heads never stopped learning from the sensuous music that existed in a world parallel to theirs. On 1979's Fear of Music, they made a defiant connection with funk and disco in "I Zimbra" and "Life during Wartime," both of which aid in preparing us for Remain in Light's startling avant-primitivism.
On Remain in Light, rhythm takes over. Each of the eight compositions adheres to a single guitar-drum riff repeated endlessly, creating what funk musicians commonly refer to as a groove. A series of thin, shifting layers is then added: more jiggly percussion, glancing and contrasting guitar figures, singing by Byrne that represents a sharp and exhilarating break with the neurotic and intentionally wooden vocals that had previously characterized all Talking Heads albums.
Though the tunes take their time (side one has just three cuts), nobody steps out to solo here. There isn't any elaboration of the initial unifying riff either. Because of this, these songs resemble the African music that the band has taken great pains to acknowledge as Remain in Light's guiding structure. (An even bolder example of the African influence is My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, an LP recorded by David Byrne and Brian Eno that may never be issued in its ideal form. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts uses fixed staccato rhythm patterns in much the same way that Eno's early solo work built whole compositions around simple synthesizer clusters. In place of formal singing, the album substitutes "found" vocals: e.g., random voices taped off the radio. Indeed, one of these voices, that of evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman, threw the entire project into legal limbo with a threat to sue unless it was removed. Sire has indicated that the disc will probably be remixed, but no release date has been set. Which is too bad, because My Life in the Bush of Ghosts enhances the aesthetic of Remain in Light, and at least one of its sections, "Shaking with My Voice," is as strange and thrilling a piece of music as either Byrne or Eno has ever made.)
In addition to its African influences, Remain in Light also flashes the ecstatic freedom of current American funk, across which any number of complex emotions and topics can roam. In both "Born under Punches (the Heat Goes On)" and "Crosseyed and Painless," the rhythm lurches about while always moving forward, thrust ahead by the tough, serene beat of the bass and percussion. Throughout, instruments are so tightly meshed that it's often difficult to pick out what you're hearing---or even who's playing. As part of their let's-rethink-this-music attitude, Talking Heads occasionally play one another's instruments, and guests as disparate as Robert Palmer and Nona Hendryx are enlisted. (By now, of course, producer Brian Eno can be considered a fifth Head.) Far from being confusing, however, such density contributes greatly to the mesmerizing power exerted by these elaborate dance tunes.
Though you can follow, to some extent, the story lines of, say, "Listening Wind" (in which an Indian stores up weaponry to launch an assault on plundering Americans) and the spoken fable, "Seen and Not Seen," Remain in Light's lyrics are more frequently utilized to describe or embody abstract concepts. Thus, beneath the wild dance patterns of "Crosseyed and Painless," there lurks a dementedly sober disquisition on the nature of facts that culminates in a hilarious, rapidly recited list of characteristics ("Facts are simple and facts are straight/Facts are lazy and facts are late... ") that could go on forever ---and probably does, since the song fades out before the singer can finish reading what's on the lyric sheet. Elsewhere, strings of words convey meaning only through Byrne's intonation and emphasis: his throaty, conspiratorial murmur in "Houses in Motion" adds implications you can't extract from lines as flyaway as "I'm walking a line--- I'm thinking about empty motion."
In all of this lies a solution to a problem that was clearly bothering David Byrne on Fear of Music: how to write rock lyrics that don't yield to easy analysis and yet aren't pretentious. Talking Heads' most radical attempt at an answer was the use of da-daist Hugo Ball's nonsense words as a mock-African chant in "I Zimbra." The strategy on Remain in Light is much more complicated and risky. In compositions like "Born under Punches" and "Crosseyed and Painless," phrases are suggested and measured, repeated and turned inside out, in reaction to the spins and spirals of their organizing riff-melodies. At no time does the music change to accommodate the completion of a conventional pop-song sentiment or clever line.
Once in a while, the experiments backfire on the experimenters. Both "The Great Curve" and "The Overload" are droning drags, full of screeching guitar noise that's more freaked-out than felt. Usually, however, the gambler's aesthetic operating within Remain in Light yields scary, funny music to which you can dance and think, think and dance, dance and think, ad infinitum.
Pitchfork
By Joe Tangari; October 16, 2005
Every critical cliché and overused word you've seen applied to the Talking Heads discography over the years is inescapable for a reason. More than some sort of ill-defined genius or brilliance, what made this band so special is that they captured their era without sounding consigned to it. Listening to "Once in a Lifetime" roughly 25 years after it was laid to tape-- and countless other tracks on this all-inclusive eight-disc box set-- their music is perhaps more relevant now than ever.
"And you may ask yourself, 'How did I get here'?" is a sort of omni-biographical prediction for every individual caught up in the information age. It considers our lives as consumers-- lives spent consuming information, commercial goods, and trivialities-- and holds a magnifying glass to the moments when you look around at all you've collected and wonder what for. Talking Heads had an uncanny ability to tie connecting threads between seemingly disjointed elements, both musically and lyrically, and what may come across in David Byrne's lyrics as simple quirkiness or detachment more often seems like an open-minded willingness to give voice to the ridiculous things that lie in the subconscious.
Talking Heads' roots extended to college at the Rhode Island School of Design, but they were truly forged in the crucible of New York City's burgeoning punk scene. In a sense they were the polar opposite of the band they often opened for at CBGB, the Ramones. But, unapologetically egg-headed and eclectic, even funky, Talking Heads were more pop-art than punk, filling their music with head-spinning tempo changes, freaked-out vocals, and a healthy propensity for experimentation. To say they were unique is like saying Thomas Jefferson was pretty smart-- even bands that have since tried to sound like them can't.
The band's importance is acknowledged basically everywhere-- they're even in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame now-- so it's puzzling that it's taken their discography so long to receive the lavish treatment it deserves, something made even somewhat ironic by the band's early embrace of technology. In fact, the CDs have always sounded vastly inferior to the original vinyl releases. Enter the reissue gurus at Rhino, who've painstakingly assembled the definitive collection of the entire Talking Heads studio output. The Brick is an elegant presentation of all eight studio albums together in an austere white box embossed with the titles of the songs it contains. Each album is presented in DualDisc format, with the record and bonus tracks on the CD side, and a 5.1 surround mix and video extras on the DVD side.
In addition to live footage, the set also calls attention to the band's early mastery of the video format. Each of their music videos are included with their respective LPs, and each is in an artistic (if not technical) league that only a small fraction of videos produced during MTV's first decade achieved. The fact that they're enjoyable on a level beyond nostalgia is impressive enough, but "Love for Sale" in particular, while hardly counting among the band's best songs, must rank among the best videos I've ever seen. Making wickedly insightful and intuitive use of footage from commercials and consumer logos, the short culminates in the iconic transformation of the band into chocolate figurines.
As for the albums themselves, the clean remastering has made a spectacular difference in sound quality, boosting the levels and fleshing out the depth and dynamic range of the recordings. The earliest albums benefit most-- 77 and More Songs About Buildings and Food sound better than ever, as punchy and nervy as the music they contain. Those two albums effectively mark the band's first phase, with Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth laying down thick, r&b-influenced; grooves while Jerry Harrison and David Byrne, always an under-rated guitarist, offered up tricky interplay and dense texture.
Byrne was a riveting frontman from the start, and he gets away with vocal tics and singing way outside of his range here in a way few other performers have. His eccentricity is the focal point of the classic "Psycho Killer", but it's songs like "Uh Oh, Love Comes to Town", "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel", and the cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River" that emphasize how much each member brought to the table individually. As an ensemble, they were beyond tight, and their ability to lock into a tense groove led them to transition away from the concise, bouncy weirdness of their first two records into darker and more abstract territory.
They began the transformation on 1979's Fear of Music, a willfully difficult, paranoid album that moves Byrne's anxieties to center stage. Opener "I Zimbra" is something of a fake-out, hinting at the group's future experimentation with African polyrhythms and heavy groove, but its gibberish chant is actually fairly indicative of what follows. On "Mind", Byrne's voice blurs with bizarre trickling synth and fractured bass; "Paper" and "Air" express uncertainty about our corporeal existence; Byrne smears irony over the record's most danceable rhythm track, "Life During Wartime"; and "Heaven" paints the afterlife as a place of mind-numbing repetition: "When this kiss is over it will start again/ It will not be any different/ It will be exactly the same," he sings, sounding sober, almost resigned. The album closes with a nightmare twosome in "Electric Guitar" and "Drugs", lysergic new wave tunes that collapse under their own oppressive weight.
The bleak intensity of Fear of Music crystallized on Remain in Light, the band's masterpiece. Brian Eno had produced the band since More Songs, but here, he pushed them to stretch out and let their songs breathe as much as possible. The lack of ego on the album is striking. The band members switch instruments and share the spotlight with backup musicians-- Frantz is augmented by all manner of hand percussion, while Byrne gets plenty of help on the mic from huge choruses, often playing call-and-response. The grooves of "Cross-Eyed and Painless" and "The Great Curve" are unstoppable, while opener "The Heat Goes On (Born Under Punches)" feels like a constant, burning descent into a cauldron of polyrhythms. "All I want is to breathe," sings Byrne in multi-tracked harmony, but the song is claustrophobic and constricted, refusing to allow his escape. "The Overload" is almost too dark, completely blotting out whatever small trace of sunlight might occasionally poke through earlier in the record. The album is a triumph, but it was understandably draining: Their follow-up took three years to complete.
Speaking in Tongues was worth the wait. Movement is in its fiber, but it's the details of the arrangements-- the buzzy synths that answer Byrne in the chorus of "Making Flippy Floppy", the clicking handclaps of "Slippery People"-- that make the album's funk so deeply satisfying. The mood is noticeably lighter as the band deftly extricate themselves from the seriousness of their two previous albums. Where Byrne sounded trapped in a fragile body on Fear of Music, here he muses that "We've got great big bodies/ We've got great big heads." "Burning Down the House" sets howling keys against mechanically fingered guitarwork and massive percussion, while "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" wrenches human sadness from its synthesizer melody. Elsewhere, "Pull Up the Roots" and "Girlfriend Is Better" find the band at their loosest. Unfortunately, Speaking in Tongues was the last Talking Heads album that felt completely natural.
The band's final three albums are rarely discussed relative to what came before; they're not nearly as rewarding. Little Creatures sported the outstanding single "And She Was", but is otherwise a staid, composed effort. Where once there were once loose grooves, there was now noticeable stiffness, and the music feels beholden to pre-established concepts rather than allowed to form through free-associative interplay. The follow-up, True Stories, was mostly filler packed in around the crunchy synth-rock of "Love for Sale" and "Wild Wild Life". As an album, it has its moments (and yes, Radiohead took their name from one of its songs), but it largely fails, too tightly intertwined with the narrative of its cinematic counterpart.
The band's final album, 1988's Naked, is a strange beast, essentially two completely different sets of songs playing against each other on the album's two halves. The band began the recording process by assembling a series of grooves in New York, then traveled to Paris for overdub sessions, bringing in local African musicians (and Johnny Marr) in a slight return to the technique that made Remain in Light so great. It works on "Blind", a song beholden almost completely to its bubbling groove and sharp horn arrangement as Byrne sings in an unusual rasp. "(Nothing but) Flowers" is ebullient highlife funk, essentially a wistful celebration of the end of civilization as Byrne offers lyrics like, "This was a Pizza Hut/ Now it's all covered with daisies," over chattering guitars and ultra-fluid rhythms. The record's flip, however, is much darker, almost completely divorced from what precedes it-- "The Facts of Life" is especially cold, with a mechanical synth and lyrics like, "We are programmed happy little children."
Still, Naked is, for me, the best and most interesting of the band's closing trio of albums, and if nothing else, it shows them attempting a fresher approach. The quartet wouldn't officially announce their break-up until 1991, but they went out on a higher note than they're often given credit for. The reissue appends the interesting soundtrack song "Sax & Violins", which actually works as a strong closer for the album. Generally speaking, though, the outtakes and leftovers from the band's earliest sessions are the best Rhino offers on these discs. 77 especially is augmented by a wealth of rare tracks. "Sugar on My Tongue" deserved to make the original tracklist, if not in this particular recorded form, and Arthur Russell shows up sawing up his cello on the interesting "acoustic" version of "Psycho Killer" (a number of electric instruments are present).
Beyond the quality of the actual music, Rhino has done a superb job of getting the sound of these albums to where it should have been long ago, and the bonus material is well-chosen and enlightening, if not essential listening. Including the band's videos and live footage from the years before they made videos was a great idea, and despite its high price tag and some strange packaging decisions (the jewel cases have no printing on the spines, and the back covers are solid white, which means you have to remove the liner notes to find the tracklists), the box is worth it for anyone who wants everything in one place. But of course, what ultimately matters most is the music, and listening to each of these records delivers something the elaborate artwork and fetishist packaging can't: proof this band deserves every kind word ever said about it.
BBC Online
Tracks that continue to fascinate and inspire over 30 years after their creation.
Mike Diver 2012
There’s a chance, slim though it may be, that you haven’t yet listened to Remain in Light. Please, find and play it now. Feet tapping, and fingers clicking? That’s to be expected. Soon, exquisite textures come into focus. Brilliant, isn’t it? An album that sounds as fresh in 2012 as it ever has.
Each time Remain in Light’s 40 minutes pass you by there’s likely to be something new to hear. Fidgety opener Born Under Punches is one of a handful of cuts that seems to get itself locked into an infinite loop – a good thing. It, like the equally muscular, equally wired The Great Curve, utilises club-land repetition mapped to Afrobeat-at-double-speed architecture to create an end product that’s utterly hypnotic.
Remain in Light wasn’t the first time Talking Heads, helmed by the inimitable David Byrne, had worked with producer Brian Eno. Nor was it the first time they’d incorporated elements of "world" music: debut set Talking Heads: 77’s opener, Uh-oh, Love Comes to Town, features steelpan sounds from the Caribbean. But it was (is!) the indubitable zenith of both the band’s Eno collaborations and their explorations beyond art/post-punk and new wave templates.
Whilst Byrne and bandmates’ intentions from the outset were framed by the desire to experiment, Remain in Light is a perfectly accessible affair, never losing sight of the following Talking Heads had attracted via minor single hits like Psycho Killer and their cover of Al Green’s Take Me to the River.
This mainstream-savvy sensibility is encapsulated by Once in a Lifetime. Far from Remain in Light’s most riveting moment, it’s nevertheless the ideal introduction to this set: Eno’s introduction of Fela Kuti-inspired rhythms lends the track a savant edge, but Byrne’s aspiration-meets-realism lyricism connects with a universal audience. With MTV offering support come the station’s 1981 launch, the track was Talking Heads’ best-known song until it was out-radio-played by 1985’s Road to Nowhere.
Road to Nowhere’s parent LP, Little Creatures, can’t match Remain in Light’s bravado, though. This fourth album illustrates how keen ambition could gel with commercial nous, with results that dazzle. Even in its darker turns - closer The Overload the obvious example -these eight tracks continue to fascinate over 30 years after their creation.
In short: same as it ever was, same as it ever was…
AllMusic
Talking Heads
Remain in Light
AllMusic Rating *****
Review by William Ruhlmann
The musical transition that seemed to have just begun with Fear of Music came to fruition on Talking Heads' fourth album, Remain in Light. "I Zimbra" and "Life During Wartime" from the earlier album served as the blueprints for a disc on which the group explored African polyrhythms on a series of driving groove tracks, over which David Byrne chanted and sang his typically disconnected lyrics. Remain in Light had more words than any previous Heads record, but they counted for less than ever in the sweep of the music. The album's single, "Once in a Lifetime," flopped upon release, but over the years it became an audience favorite due to a striking video, its inclusion in the band's 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, and its second single release (in the live version) because of its use in the 1986 movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills, when it became a minor chart entry. Byrne sounded typically uncomfortable in the verses ("And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife/And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"), which were undercut by the reassuring chorus ("Letting the days go by"). Even without a single, Remain in Light was a hit, indicating that Talking Heads were connecting with an audience ready to follow their musical evolution, and the album was so inventive and influential, it was no wonder. As it turned out, however, it marked the end of one aspect of the group's development and was their last new music for three years.
Slant Magazine
Talking Heads
Remain In Light
****1/2
By Barry Walsh - November 6, 2004
Who could've guessed that a bunch of nerdy kids with guitars from the late '70s/early '80s would leave such an enduring imprint on popular music? But with acts like The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, The Rapture, and Hot Hot Heat aping the moves of their spastic, genre-blurring predecessors (take a bow Public Image Limited, Gang Of Four, Orange Juice, XTC, and Devo), it's obvious that the musical era commonly referred to as New Wave had far more to it than just being those few years after punk when people danced a little better. And from that era, one album, from one band, serves as a timeless signpost of a period where artists were not only unafraid to experiment within the idiom of the pop song, they were practically expected to. The band: Talking Heads. The album: Remain In Light.
Bug-eyed vocalist/guitarist David Byrne, ex-Modern Lover/keyboardist/guitarist Jerry Harrison, and the husband-and-wife rhythm section of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz had already begun to introduce African elements into their particular brand of art school rock n' roll with 1979's Fear Of Music. But with Light, the band (along with co-producer/director-of-the-flow Brian Eno) cast their subversions of the pop form into a whole new element, forming songs out of loops (still a relatively unique approach for the time), and letting rhythm, repetition, and continuous vocal counterplay between Byrne's distinctive yelps and the soulful contributions from backing vocalists such as Nona Hendryx steer the course. The results were simply magical.
Take, for example, the album's most enduring track, "Once In A Lifetime." Framed by the simplest of grooves (Weymouth's two-note bass line and Frantz's fairly funky drum loop), as well as layer upon layer of Harrison's burbling keyboard, skitch-skitch rhythm guitar, and odd, random noises, the track provides ample room for Byrne's lyric (which, with its "You may find yourself..." refrain, resembles more an evangelist's rant than a pop lyric) to hover, bounce, and jab itself into memory. Put this song on the system at any hipster dance joint, perhaps somewhere after Hot Hot Heat or The Killers (if your audience will tolerate such "commercial fluff"), and watch the room explode. Has anyone done a mash-up with this track yet?
Beyond its attention to groove and manipulations of conventional songwriting, the album is also remarkable for another element—the contributions of guest guitarist Adrian Belew. Having served as a sideman to Zappa and Bowie and on the verge of launching his own legacy with demented prog institution King Crimson, Belew added the kind of guitar solos to the band's soundscapes that were simply unfathomable for most players. The oppressive funk thump of "Born Under Punches" is highlighted by Belew's section, where his Stratocaster sounds more like a malfunctioning computer on the Starship Enterprise than any stringed instrument, while his solo swoops, careens, and glides like a thrill-seeking pilot at an air show on the buoyant, exultant "The Great Curve."
Lyrically and vocally, Byrne applied the new, forward-thinking sonic approach to his writing as well. Past self-referential snippets like "Artists Only" and observations of single topics ("Drugs," "Heaven," etc.) were eschewed in favor of evocative Burroughs-like cut-ups, and while it's sometimes unclear what Byrne is talking about ("I'm a tumbler/Born under punches/I'm so thin"), it always seems to serve the mood cast by the music. Socio-political streams of consciousness seem to exist within the lyrics, perhaps most effectively on the strangely relevant "Listening Wind," depicting the efforts of a mail-bomber, driven to his actions by "The wind in my heart/The dust in my head."
With Remain In Light, Talking Heads took what was being increasingly regarded as a generally cerebral extension of punk and turned it into something far more global in musical and lyrical scope. And the fact that this new Head Music crossed so many lines and introduced so many new elements to not only their own vocabulary as a band but to pop music in general (hell, Byrne even raps in "Crosseyed & Painless") proves that Byrne and Co. truly had their fingers on the metronomic pulse of modern culture, mirroring it with their music, all the while casting a watchful eye ahead to where it could go next. And that's what essential pop music—from any era—always does.
Label: Sire Release date: November 6, 1980
PopMatters
Talking Heads: Remain in Light
By Luke Stiles 2 December 2003
By now, most people know that nerds are cool. I recently realized that my nerdiest relative, the uncle who went to MIT, gave me my favorite album, Remain in Light by the Talking Heads, (a pretty nerdy group of folks in their own right). I don’t remember exactly when he gave it to me, but I think it was probably Christmas, seventh grade. That would make the year 1985 and me 12. I was on the verge of great things, and his gift of the Talking Heads’ Remain in Light definitely did its part to push me over the top. Within a year I would have a punk rock mullet, pick up a guitar, start smoking pot, and start worrying about not getting laid. I got to know the album front to back, and even though the album was five years old, as they vaulted to stardom with the inclusion of “Burning Down the House” on the Revenge of the Nerds soundtrack, I was able to cop the ultimate music snob attitude: the I-like-their-older-stuff-better attitude. Life was good and I began my charade of cool and being a few steps ahead of the masses that continues to this day.
Remain in Light pulled me in for the first time with its unfamiliar rhythms and art-rock sensibilities. I pored over the lyric sheet when I first received the album, and the perfection of their post-modern inscrutability continues to be a source of pleasure. Possibly even more important was David Byrne. I’m no idolater and I eschew celebrity, but David Byrne was an object of rare obsession for a moment in late eighth grade. My status as a celebrity slut skyrocketed to its peak when I bought a poster from the hottest girl in my class. I never would have had the guts to talk to her then, and still wouldn’t today, but the prospect of acquiring a centerpiece for my shrine thawed out my normally frozen larynx. I even went so far as experimenting with the slicked back hairstyle David rocked in the poster, but my rapidly lengthening locks were not particularly cooperative, and soon after I graduated to “accidental” dreadlocks.
My musical interests became even more tangled, and my fascination with David Byrne and the Talking Heads faded. I had just been introduced to the sophistication of jazz. The intensity of metal beckoned. My excitement about hip-hop came to a head with Public Enemy, NWA, and all members of the Native Tongues family. At the same time, I was swept up in the local punk scene, playing in some bands and partying with the rest. And there was always classic rock on the upstate radio stations. But at 17, when packing for a move, I dusted off my Talking Heads tapes and records, bringing them back into rotation. But before long, I was distracted once again.
After a long lull during my bicycle racing obsessed college years, Remain in Light was periodically brought back into rotation for one reason or another. Most recently, it was the rising popularity of dance rock bands like the Rapture. The Talking Heads did that, and did it without resorting to the synth-heavy tactics favored by their new wave peers and most of today’s resurgents. A couple of years ago, I was introduced to a great new band, Los Amigos Invisibles, signed to David Byrne’s Luakabop label. Before that, it was Z-Trip and Radar’s set at the Transmission Theater for San Francisco’s now-seminal scratchaholic party, the Future Primitive Soundsessions, where they juggled “Once in a Lifetime” to great effect.
But the real reason the album has endured despite the constant assault of incessant influxes of fresh blood into my musical world is that it’s really fucking good. It’s moody without being whiny. Danceable, but musically sophisticated. Remain in Light is the Talking Heads’ finest work; the peak before the plateau. It is sandwiched between two live albums, followed by solo projects from all members and only a few more studio albums.
Remain in Light‘s awesomeness was made possible by the formidable talent of the band and the amazing cast of collaborators. Years later, when I entered an “experimental” phase and developed a love for Adrian Belew, I realized he was responsible for many of the guitar solos on Remain in Light. As I read more about some of my favorite artists, many of them cited Brian Eno as an important influence. Wouldn’t you know it, he was there too! Much later, as I explored music from ‘70s and that funky pop masquerading as jazz found on CTI, Kudu, and other now defunct great record labels, who should be playing percussion in Weather Report but Jose Rossy, also the percussionist for Remain in Light. After settling on hip-hop as my preferred genre, I can return to Remain in Light and David Byrne’s post-modern rap about facts, truth and reality at the end of “Crosseyed and Painless”. And now, as I explore the music of sub-Saharan Africa from the West African funk of Fela to Antibalas’ and Tony Allen’s reinterpretations of the same to soukous, Remain in Light stands as an early example of the same explorations by American artists.
The longevity of Remain in Light makes it an essential album for me. No matter how much I neglect it, it always comes back. It’s not my first album; that honor goes to Men at Work and their smash debut Business as Usual. It’s not my current favorite; that changes at least once a week. But Remain in Light‘s eclectic musical intellectualism suits me well, and I will continue to come back to it for as long my ears continue to function.
Amazon.com
Way back in 1980, the original wave of Talking Heads fans were pleasantly stunned to hear Remain in Light, produced and co-written by Brian Eno, on which Byrne and company are joined by guitar god Adrian Belew, and funk legends Bernie Worrell (keyboards) and Steven Scales (percussion), among others, for a fuller, funkier sound nobody imagined they had in them. The first three songs are long, layered, full-body dance parties, with incessantly repeated phrases (musical and lyrical), and increasingly catchy melodic hooks that won't let go for days. "Once in a Lifetime" was the big hit, but the rockingest track is the third, "The Great Curve," after which the songs get more linear and subdued. It's still great stuff, right through to the especially Eno-like droner, "The Overload," but the second half is maybe better to sleep to than dance to. Which is fine: after the exuberance of the first three songs, you'll need a little nap. --Dan Leone