Talking Heads: 77 - the poll

hmm, one the second line should have been: Remain In Light, Side 2 which needs to be redone one of these days.

my vote was immediate

so i'm trowing the remastered version on right now, feel like live blogging this but will resist as i will end up being the beers talking

trowing throwing

see the beers are already talking

haha trowing

The government!!

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW I'M LIVING IN THE FUTURE
I FEEL WONDERFUL!
I'M TIPPING OVER BACKWARDS!
I'M SO AMBITIOUS
I'M LOOKING BACK, I'M
RUNNING A RACE AND YOU'RE THE
BOOK
I
READ

IN A WORLD
WHERE PEOPLE HAVE PROBLEMS

JET PILOT GONE OUT OF CONTROL
SHIP CAPTAIN RUN AGROUND
STOCKBROKER MAKE A BAD INVESTMENT! WHEN LOVE HAS COME TO TOWN

i dunno what i'm voting for i'm just making sure nobody forgets anything

No Compassion, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish but Psycho Killer is one of the greatest songs of all time. One of the best songs of all time.

dlh otm

kornrulez6969 otm

The Book I Read.

the version off The Nane Of This Band.. is amazing.

Love this album. Hard to pick one.

such a good album. I'm tempted to vote for Pulled Up, but have to have a think about it.

admittedly this is maybe the TH album I listen to least, but it's still amazing.

It's easily the one I listen to most!

schweet poll
ah man the book i read is so awesome
but don't worry about the government is my favourite TH song

Everyone slates Speaking In Tongues, but it's my favourite of their studio albums after RiL.

Have we done an SiT poll? Can we do it after?

hmph... it seems i wasn't around to vote in any of the TH polls upthread. Would be good to do a big TH poll.

loved ones x2

I love the whole album, and just about everything they did. Top ten all-time american band. I voted "Psycho Killer"

Book I Read
Psycho Killer

BUT

There's something about Tentative Decisions that's always made it a personal fave even though I don't listen to it that much anymore. I don't think it'll get many votes so I'm giving it mine.

"Go...talk to your analyst, isn't that what they're paid for"

who is it?
perfect

"The Book I Read," "No Compassion," "Pulled Up" (magnificent on The Name of This Band is) -- very difficult.

Alright fine: "No Compassion" for those chord and tempo changes.

"...isn't that what they're PAID FOR?!" So great.

Will spin this in the car for the purpose of this poll (and because it's fun of course). I think "No Compassion" used to be my favorite, though "Psycho Killer" is 'hors catégorie', clearly.

"Pulled Up" is the joint on this album imo

Voted "Government"

also "Pulled Up" but this album is so consistent that I might be picking that because it's the last song I heard when I relistened to this
everyone otm about The Name of This Band Is...

not quite sure what i'd vote for here, but i do think "psycho killer" is definitely one of the greatest/strangest songs to weasel its way into the rock n roll canon. i heard it played at a baseball game last year!

I feel like gushing about Talking Heads, so: Does anyone know from experience whether the Heads are as affable and warm in person as they come across on record? I always think when listening to them that the collective personality (you know what I mean) that the band projects on record and in performance is the most attractive I've ever heard. It's strange and funny but with an undercurrent of earnest friendliness. They're the most likeable of bands, is what I mean to say.

... they are on this album definitely

this album really annoyed The Clash supposedly and Strummer said something along the lines of "i couldn't understand where this guy was coming from" about Byrne's lyrics. anything that winds up The Clash is aok by me.

Much as I like their individual personae, I can't help feeling that they would have been a frosty bunch IRL, particularly later on.

Tina and Chris are as affable and kind as they seem, although Tina + Byrne is, erm, a volatile combination.

Liner note essays from the band members in the Sand in the Vaseline comp suggest a high level of frostiness -- except for Franz. He seems like he loved the band as much as their die hard fans.

Alright fine: "No Compassion" for those chord and tempo changes.

yep

yeah TW and DB had a well documented long running feud. she couldn't even resist having a pop at him right there in the lyrics bang in the middle of her side-project's biggest hit! wonky chemistry is what made em so special though too i guess, so gotta love em for that. i think DB and Eno woulda drove anyone nutty in the 80s tbf.

"Tentative Decisions" it is. "Hard logic, I know!"

this was my favorite album for a while in college (LOL so cliche), and it's really hard to vote for a winner. uh oh, govt, and pulled up are my sentimental favorites here. although obv psycho killer is awesome, i guess it just suffers for its ubiquity here, cause im not as excited about it as the other three.

so hard. think imma go with the opener, but "pulled up" is right behind.

when were you in college?

i was definitely bumping this album in my dorm room in 2001

^^same exac shit

The Heads revival was one of the more inspiring things of the last eight to ten years. When I discovered them in '92 (after owning and loving Byrne's Rei Momo) it was too soon after their ignominious petering away, so they were about as uncool as you could get. As late as '99 when our local alt weekly ran a story on the 15th anniversary of SMS Chris Frantz was still lamenting how the Heads were "too successful" and not many bands cited them as an influence.

What got me into them was the release of Sand in the Vaseline, and I wore those tapes out.

by the late nineties it seemed like every friend had a copy.

JET PILOT GONE OUT OF CONTROL
SHIP CAPTAIN RUN AGROUND
STOCKBROKER MAKE A BAD INVESTMENT! WHEN LOVE HAS COME TO TOWN

― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 10:30 PM (Yesterday)

I've listened to this song about a million times and never knew what these lyrics were until this post. Good stuff!

Voted for Government. I love the peppy elecrtic piano and the positivity bordering on psychosis.

another pulled up vote from me

this was my favorite band for most of college. probably still my favorite band? i don't really have a favorite band. but the way autistic alienated byrne grows loving and enthusiastic (and learns to dance) without ever quite coming in from the cold was so for me; i never felt another band so much.

anyway i listen to the name of this band is more than any other heads album aside from RiL. when i want to hear speaking in tongues i just put on stop making sense.

when i was a kid i thought it was "shit crappin' on the ground"

probably voting "uh-oh" for that reason, though I'm tempted by "Pulled Up"

shit crappin on the ground!

Another cool thing about Uh-oh: Steel Drum Solo!

sounds like we should do The Name of.... after this. I came to that much, much later than the rest of their albums (still smh at friends who loooved Stop Making Sense but never mentioned TNOTBITH), so it still sounds kind of new to me.

name of this band was unreleased on CD for a lonnggggg time, so it's understandable that Stop Making Sense was the go-to live Heads album. but yeah, name of this band is wayyyyyy better than stop making sense. name of this band is probably in the top 10 live rock albums of all time.

TNOTB boasts one of the highest Metacritic scores.

oh, not being released on CD probably explains it, since the peak years of friends raving about SMS (which I don't hate, especially the film, but is obv inferior) would have been 1996-2000.

yeah, i don't think they re-ished it on CD til 2004 or so.

really regretting cutting all ties with those friends now :/

oh you did the right thing. they could've found it on LP.

stop making sense has been great since 1999 or whenever it was they actually released it

I was complaining and down in the dumps!

whenever i think about this album i can't help but actually see the cassette that contained it, it was this weird sire double album cassette (MSABAF on the other side) that came in a flip top cardboard box. and pulled up i guess.

Pulled Up. Think of a song that reminds you of Pulled Up. You can't, because there is none! Do you know how amazing that is? Also I feel happy every time I've heard it for the past 34 years, and it always sounds very strange and exciting. It's hard to believe this album actually exists, it's so great.

full concert on german tv from 1980 http://vimeo.com/36798019
anyone gotten that new Heads DVD?

man, the dude that posted that vimeo has also posted all sorts of other cool shit by other bands. bookmarked for sure

Yeah, ditto. That Dortmund TH show is pretty good, just finished watching/listening. Belew's sonic bag of tricks is revealed to be pretty small though.

Book I Read. Tyler, I just got the DVD but haven't watched it yet.

"No Compassion" btw

it moves the clouds over by the building
i pick the building that i want to live in

Pulled Up. Think of a song that reminds you of Pulled Up.

byrne's hysterics at the end go beyond jonathan richman, but the song itself is pretty in line with the modern lovers songbook.

Awww. You people are cute, acting like Psycho Killer isn't the best thing on this record by 10,000 billion million zillion light years.

kornrulez6969 otm

― ⚓ (gr8080), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 7:12 PM (Yesterday)

full concert on german tv from 1980 http://vimeo.com/36798019
anyone gotten that new Heads DVD?

― tylerw, Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:28 PM (Yesterday)

"If you dance, you might understand the words better." <3

oh man, psycho killer is good and all but the rest of 77 is equally fucking awesome

yeah the new DVD is great especially the American Bandstand clip which is just magical. should be twice as long mind this DVD; a lot of the clips are from gigs that you can see in full on You Tube. it's like a sampler of what you can get loads more of online.

listened to this this morning on the train. No Compassion has to be one of Byrne's best lyrics.

The only version of "Psycho Killer" I love is the SMS one tbh.

The demo version with the "I can't smile on this beautiful day" line, I like.

"Government" because it's the one I find myself randomly bellowing lyrics from most often, but to be honest, this is an entire album of songs that would be the best track on any other album, if there were any other album they could be on, which there is not.

Like, the incredible grit-toothed way he belts out "It's gonna be easy to get things done" basically sums up the American way of life as I know it.

I wouldn't vote for it, but "Happy Day" deserves a tip of the hat. Consider how many great melodies are in that song.

PULLED UP! the answer is obvious

so i ended up playing this again, so good, think i'm voting for "Pulled Up" but want to hear this yet again.

Love → Building on Fire is way better than i remember but its still no Psycho Killer

The popiness of "Love --> Building on Fire" really makes me wish they had recorded their version of "1-2-3 Red Light."

"Poppiness," that is. There's nothing pope-like about that song.

man, i thought i was the only one that rated 'pulled up'

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i ended up voting for "Psycho Killer" as i couldn't not vote for it here

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

it's a happy day!

some people need to have another listen to "No Compassion", wtf

I'm not interested in their problems.

thank god little known fan favourite "Psycho Killer" got a nod

some people need to have another listen to "No Compassion", wtf

― sleeve, Monday, February 20, 2012 6:13 PM (4 minutes ago)

otm

never liked "government" much

don't worry about it

(hyuck hyuck, sorry)

hey as long as I'm complaining, "New Feeling" wuz robbed as well.

High five other Tentative Decisions person.

Didn't vote for Tentative Decisions, but boy was it fun singing along when I replayed this this week. As were the others but in the end it the choice was between The Book I Read, No Compassion or Pulled Up. Like I said earlier, Psycho Killer is its own thing, it's bigger than the album - and it justly won. But I voted for The Book I Read.

for 10+ years the word that has come to mind to describe this album has been "fruity," because of this thread: Talking Heads '77: Classic or Dud?

2025 official video featuring Saoirse
Ronan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ54eImz88w

Very well done video. Saoirse Ronan is great. The director is Mike Mills - I assume the REM one?

No, the film-director one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mills_(director)

He's a good director. FWIW, Greil Marcus is a huge fan of 20th Century Women (which takes place on the eve of Reagan's first election win) and post-punk plays a huge role in the film, including a few Talking Heads songs. (I don't recall "Psycho Killer" being one of them though.)

That video is brilliant, what storytelling chops from actor and director.

Yeah 20th Century Women is fantastic.

Further proof that Ronan is great in everything. I saw some discussion elsewhere about iirc Lea Seydoux and her similar power at conveying so much with just a shift in expression.

Discovered in the CCR thread that apparently this is a thing, making (relatively) slick videos for old songs. It possibly explained why "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" is the most streamed CCR song, and maybe helps explains why "Psycho Killer" has twice as many Spotify streams as "This Must be the Place" and nearly three times as many as "Once in a Lifetime," which might have been my guesses for what was on top.

I’ve only seen her in two things but she’s been great in both. Interesting that you compare her to Léa Seydoux. Praise indeed.

I was convinced I or someone else had already shared this but seems not ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxXa3nfjVc

video is great, SR is great in it.

coolest thing I saw about it in the YT comments was the note that the moon's phase never changes in the shots - so it's like a Groundhog Day scenario, she's living it over and over again.

oh man that's amazing. i would commission a whole Langley Schools Music Project-style album of 70s/80s new wave classics. Rock Lobster, Girl U Want, Stool Pigeon, Non-Alignment Pact...

maybe helps explains why "Psycho Killer" has twice as many Spotify streams as

how many did it have three days ago?

it's been their top streamer for years, per the "songs that weren't a bands biggest hit, but have gone on to be their legacy song and biggest iTunes seller" thread

Wonder why?

I would have figured Psycho Killer for their most popular song, maybe in a close race with Burning Down the House and Once in a Lifetime. That's just in terms of what I perceive as the most radio play and the most use in film/tv/media.

The popularity of This Must Be The Place is something I've only learned about in the last few years. It's an okay song, but I'd rank it towards the lower end of all their singles.

am i the only one who thought the video was super predictable and boring

also i kinda doubt any thought was put into the phase of the moon not changing, or if it was, the convenience of not including other shots was the main reason

Turns out I really will gladly watch Saorsie in anything

am i the only one who thought the video was super predictable and boring

― five six seven, eight nine ten, begin (map), Monday, June 9, 2025 10:19 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

you're not

doesn't really capture any of the ethos of early talking heads to me either, they're not really an "i'm being psychologically and spiritually crushed by my office job and my monogamy"-type of band

kind of par for the course for mike mills, lots of pretty boring and conventional stuff in his films imo

Discovered in the CCR thread that apparently this is a thing, making (relatively) slick videos for old songs. It possibly explained why "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" is the most streamed CCR song, and maybe helps explains why "Psycho Killer" has twice as many Spotify streams as "This Must be the Place" and nearly three times as many as "Once in a Lifetime," which might have been my guesses for what was on top.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, June 9, 2025 8:14 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think you've got this exactly backwards

Psycho Killer is easily one of their best known songs, I'd have thought?

Anyway, cool video. Agree it doesn't really suit the band or the song for me

Doing a ctrl+F on that "songs that weren't a bands biggest hit, but have gone on to be their legacy song and biggest iTunes seller" thread, there's a post from 2009 that lists it as their fourth biggest song on iTunes. It's always been one of their big ones for sure.

Like Josh in Chicago, I'm also legitimately curious what happened in the meantime to make it by far their most popular song in the streaming era.

Maybe it depends where you live, mind. I'm sure in the UK it's the one the average person would say if asked. Maybe Once In A Lifetime, maybe even Road To Nowhere... more recently I've heard younger people getting into Naive Melody. But Psycho Killer is the one you always see on karaoke lists and previously jukeboxes etc

"Discovered in the CCR thread that apparently this is a thing, making (relatively) slick videos for old songs"

My first thought was that the phenomenon of modern slick videos for old songs was a legacy of "Plastic Love" blowing up on Youtube, but the Creedence video for "Fortunate Son" was uploaded in 2018, just slightly before the mainstream media picked up on Youtube's fascination for City Pop.

But before that, in 2014, there was the video for George Harrison's "What is Life", technically low-budget but slick-looking. Youtube also has a surprisingly clever extended video for Michael Jackson's "Thriller" that presumably uses AI to recreate his younger look. It has some impressively natural-looking CGI zombies. It's even in 4:3!

A part of me wonders if it's just a cheap way of extending the copyright of something.

Psycho Killer is easily one of their best known songs, I'd have thought?

No question.

IMDB lists 203 soundtrack credits for Talking Heads, of which I count:
41 Psycho Killer
34 Burning Down the House
26 Once in a Lifetime
26 Road to Nowhere
18 This Must Be the Place

There's no doubt "Psycho Killer" is well known, I just was surprised to see it was their most popular/most streamed, by a considerable margin, no less.

Fwiw, a similar surprise: I just opened Spotify to see what the most played Ramones song, and it's ... "Blitzkrieg Bop"! 409 million streams to (for example) "Sheena is a Punk Rocker"'s (relatively) mere 79 million.

Psycho Killer certainly felt like one of, if not their best-known song, growing up in Australia before I ever listened to them on purpose myself.

"Blitzkrieg Bop" has been a jock jam for some time.

It’s probably just been on a bunch of Spotify playlists, I don’t think streaming numbers are accurate measures of listener intent…

(Re psycho killer)

"Blitzkrieg Bop" has been a jock jam for some time.

Yeah, exactly. I think it was even used in a beer commercial at one point. Combine that with it being the first song on their first and best-known album, and its status is not exactly a surprise.

Yes, that's not surprising either!

i like drawing the comparison to have you ever seen the rain.

can we make the case that psycho killer is temporarily more popular now not because it’s the final boss legacy song for the heads, but because of their famous singles it best fits the audio mode of streaming services, which is ambient acceptance of the algorithmic suggestion in a half heard environment (bbq jam, car ride, restaurant/bar…)

it is an easy listening version of punk and new wave and classic rock and hipster artsy whatever.

because psycho killer is dominant now, in the next music platform phase shift it will be something else. i think crosseyed could still take this as afrobeat continues to make cultural inroads.

Blitzkrieg Bop has been used in a high profile advert for an electricals company called AO (as in A! O! LET'S GO) for years. But I'm pretty sure it was the first Ramones song I heard long before I properly checked then out

Again, I know it's well known, I'm just surprised it's apparently the most listened to Ramones song, side 1, song 1 aside.

Guess the most popular/listened to Blondie song?

I would assume "Heart of Glass?"

Call Me! By far.

For all I know I am reading the list wrong, though. It puts Maria in the top five!

That’s accurate for Blondie

https://kworb.net/spotify/artist/4tpUmLEVLCGFr93o8hFFIB_songs.html

I'd have hazarded Atomic for Blondie

But it's not even close. One Way Or Another is second - a wretched song imo. People have lousy taste

One Direction covered that one, iirc.

Don't forget the impact TV and film licensing can make. That happens a lot on Spotify where I'll be surprised to see a deep cut stream a lot more than the singles on the same album, and 99% of the time it's because it was in an episode of some show.

if you combine the album version of “heart of glass” with the 12” version and the “special mix” you get about the same number of streams as “call me”

tho idk why it would be surprising that a song that spent multiple weeks at number one in the u.s. and other countries would be their most popular song

I'd have hazarded Atomic for Blondie

― DLC Soundsystem (dog latin),

in the UK!

When I look at spotify, where are those numbers coming from? The US only, or globally?

i assume globally...

xp yeah, i think in the Britpop era 'Atomic' seemed like the one Blondie were most known for, if only because of Trainspotting and the fact it sounds superficially similar to bands like Pulp, Elastica etc

I'd never heard One Way.. until I saw Donnie Brasco when i was about 19. Never a single in the UK.

..so 'our' Best Of.. had Denis on it instead.

i first heard "one way or another" in the rugrats movie. i've seen it used in like a billion other things (commercials, donnie brasco, veronica mars) since

One of those singles I didn't hear once as as kid or in college and now is ubiquitous.

I just always forget it's by Blondie. Like "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Queen, it sounds stylistically apart from the rest of their hits somehow

Is it? It's in the "Rip Her to Shreds" and "X Offender" lineage.

it flows pretty naturally from "hanging on the telephone"

I dunno... It sounds super corny to me. Like a pastiche or something from a cheesy musical, or at least sounding like it comes from a lesser band

or maybe... they're overall, not that good?

I listened to it again last night and it's definitely a case of "the chorus is worse than the verse". I just don't like it I guess

I love the cocaine gargle in her voice on this song, so intoxicating. Song is phenomenal and might be the first song I heard by Blondie? You're crazy dog latin.

I seeked out the film 20th Century Woman and it featured three TH songs "Don't Worry About the Government," "Drugs" and "The Big Country." PK was not one of them. Whole movie is set around music with even a Black Flag v Talking Heads bit about how fans hated each other. Also, beautifully talked about The Raincoats, seeing bands, the dying of Punk Rock and making mixed tapes. Movie was brilliant.

Yeah, that scene where the parents try to understand the Black Flag and Talking Heads records was really well done.

Yeah I really love that film.