I Love the Talking Heads!

(Note: This was adapted from a comment I posted in a thread, which ranked the Talking Heads albums from "worst to first.")

First of all, when it comes to Talking Heads albums, they are ALL good. Very good. You cannot buy a "bad" Talking Heads album. So, why even talk about their "worst" albums? There aren't any. With that in mind, here are my favorite Talking Heads albums, in order from very best to least best:

1. Remain in Light. Terribly risky record, with the introduction of new musicians, new sounds, etc., but goddamn it, everything works here. There's not a soft spot on it. This is the Talking Heads at the absolute peak of their powers. (I dunno what Tina and Chris and Jerry may have felt about the addition of new musicians, and the apparent domination of their "sound" by Brian Eno and David Byrne, but I have to imagine that they were excited about being part of this new sound, this new feeling, that was simultaneously ancient and also brand fucking new.) This is a beautiful record, and, in my opinion one of the very best records ever made by anyone.

2. Fear of Music. See above. This record does not quite achieve the heights of Remain in Light, but it comes goddamn near close. And there's nothing anywhere that touches "Heaven," or "Life During Wartime." They were on such a creative roll at this time, that they could do no wrong. I swear to God, even when David Byrne is singing about animals living on "nuts and berries," you are riveted. This is great stuff. (And one of the best album covers ever, by the way.)

3. More Songs About Buildings and Food. (Are you sensing a trend here? Well, your sense will be confirmed with my number 4 pick.) These are brilliant, quirky songs, that I can only imagine were an absolute blast to play live, every damn one of them. Their cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River" is spectacular, and at the same time, must bow to the closer, "The Big Country," as the best song on this record. There are no weak spots here. This record is solid from beginning to end. (I bought this at K-Mart, by the way; not sure why I remember this.)

4. '77. This is the blueprint. Everything is here, if sometimes in a slightly (only very slightly) messy form. The crazy rhythms, the quirky singing, the bizarre lyrics, the FUN. OMG, this record is so much fun! "Psycho Killer"! "Don't Worry About the Government!" I love it, love it, love it! And frequently reach for it first when I'm jonesin' for some Talking Heads.

I continue, even now, decades later, to listen to these first four records on a semi-regular basis, and I never regret putting one on. I truly love every minute of every one of them. These are their four "gold star" or "5 star" or whatever you want to call it, records. They are all beautiful, and if they were my children, I would have to tell each of them, almost daily, and always privately, that I love each of you just as much as I love your sisters, but I also love your sisters just as much as I love you. And after a while, they would just have to understand.

5. OK, so now the 80s come along, and things start to get a little shaky. They stop putting out a new album of new material every year. Instead, we get a live album (The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, which is fantastic, by the way. One of the best live albums I have ever heard. I love the way it is sequenced. It is, in a way, a re-telling of their story up until now, beginning with live performances of the early songs performed by the original four members, who absolutely nail these songs that they've been playing now for years. These guys are good. No doubt about it. Gradually, new elements are added, new musicians, new sounds, until by the end, we get a raucous Remain in Light orchestral conclusion. Brilliant and beautiful. No new material here, but so wonderfully performed, that it is almost a substitute for the first four records.

6. Speaking in Tongues. This is the first misstep, but only a slight one. "Burning Down the House," which opens the record, is magnificent. "This Must Be the Place," which closes it, is beautiful and sad and melancholy and makes you want to start the whole record over again. But, when you do, you run into things like "Making Flippy Floppy" and "Moonrocks" and other songs that just don't really work, and you start to worry. This is the first Talking Heads record I purchased on CD, and I admit, I made use of the skip feature.

7. Little Creatures, like "Speaking in Tongues," is inconsistent (still a new thing for the Talking Heads). It is softer than "SIT" and maybe easier on the ears. (It could as easily be 6 rather than 7; these two albums, to me, are basically tied.) And, once again, as with SIT, the best songs are the opener ("And She Was," a crazy, fun song about a flying woman that somehow manages to make you sympathize with crazy flying women), and the closer, "Road to Nowhere," which is like no Talking Heads song I'd ever heard before, but is still unmistakably a "Talking Heads" song.

8. Naked. OK, now we're getting to the end of the road. But don't knock this record. It is probably the least best Talking Heads record ever (#9, below, hardly counts as a proper "Talking Heads" record), but it's not that bad. The song "Flowers," for example, is beautiful, a paean to the good old days before the earth took over again, reducing our Pizza Huts to fields of daisies and cornfields. Clever and pretty and just plain sweet. Unfortunately, there just wasn't much else here, and this was obviously the end of the line for them. But not a bad farewell. And if you haven't listened to it in a while, listen to it again. There is plenty of good stuff here. Really. I know it's hard though, because when you want to hear the Talking Heads, this is not really what you want to hear.

9. True Stories. From what I understand, this barely counts as a Talking Heads record at all. More of a David Byrne vanity project. But that's okay. "Love For Sale" and "Wild Wild Life" are great. But there's also quite a bit of filler. And the movie was lame. (Sorry! But, yeah, you know I'm right.) Still, If I had made nine albums in my career, and this was the "worst" of them, or the "least best" of them (according to some dope in Lincoln, Nebraska), I'd feel still be pretty damned proud.

So, yeah. No fucking shit. The Talking Heads were great. Their first four albums were as good as any first four albums that anyone has ever made. I would stack them against Roxy Music and Elvis Costello and the Ramones and Bruce Springsteen and the Clash and . . . one or two others that escape my mind. Maybe they (or at least their "leader") got a little too ambitious, and then maybe they tried to scale back again to recapture their original innocence, and maybe that didn't quite work out, but what the hell. These guys were goddamned good. No, I take that back. They were really fucking great.