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Talking Heads was a new wave band which formed in 1975 in New York City, New York, United States. The band originally consisted of David Byrne (vocals, guitar), Tina Weymouth (bass) and Chris Frantz (drums), who had met while attending the Rhode Island School of Design. The band added Jerry Harrison (keyboards & guitar) in April 1977. The band released eight studio albums before disbanding in 1991. Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Read more on Last.fm
Thirty-four years and a million and one imitators later, the Talking Heads still sound irrepressibly weird. Vocally, David Byrne has a nervous energy that’s been often imitated and never duplicated, lyrically there’s no one like him. The lyric sheet to this record reads like pages from a neurotic, possibly autistic kook’s diary and the fact that his delivery can make all of this unfiltered oddness endearing is one of his greatest traits. The rest of the band proves a perfect foil. I can’t imagine hearing this record in ’77: the rhythm section is tight and groovy enough to have played disco at any club in New York, but the guitars are angular and disjointed enough to have been from another planet (or at least whichever one Wire was on at the time).
“More Songs” is better pound-for-pound and it isn’t an absolute aural feast the way “Remain in Light” is, but “77” is plenty of fun and has more than enough amazing tracks to justify its classic status.