xp let's not nitpick here. You are OTM about much of TH's work not being funk-oriented. Even their funkiest records like RiL and FoM have a good handful of tracks that don't rely on funky grooves at all
― Shat Parp (dog latin), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:27 (seven years ago) link
Fear of Music isn't esp. funky, of course.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:32 (seven years ago) link
AF don't really do afrobeat, though? They're clearly inspired by Caribbean music on their last few albums, but since Regine is from Haiti, that kinda makes sense?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:32 (seven years ago) link
Turrican, have you seen Stop Making Sense? Ironically that's the film that made TH make sense to me.
Dog Latin nails it right here, I was just going to suggest the same. That film has the visual element to Talking Heads that is missing, as well as the aforementioned live aspect, that helps fill in the picture. But, to be fair, the music should stand on its own.
I think people's reactions itt are interesting - going down the "cultural appropriation" rabbit hole isn't going to get anywhere. When people say they don't like a particular artist, my first question is, "What exactly do you find off-putting?" I can understand finding David's voice difficult but liking the music - that's how I feel about Robert Smith and The Cure. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of different musical styles? That's exactly what I love about TH. Or maybe the hype or image surrounding an artist is the problem. I usually find that easy to ignore.
And for some artists, I find that cherry picking my favorite songs is enough. Maybe that's where Turrican is with Talking Heads.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:33 (seven years ago) link
But If someone wants to call Talking Heads a funk band I dont think we need to lose our minds.
You've got to question why it is that people are losing their minds, really. I think people in this thread are too scared to call something for what it is out of some kind of deep fear that others will think they're somehow closet Wild Cherry fans and that's basically what it boils down to.
So, "white funk for people who perhaps consider themselves a little too artsy and deep to listen to the real deal", as I near enough said in the first place.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:36 (seven years ago) link
"Talking Heads listen to funk and are influenced by funk and are white people that play funk but OH GOD THEY'RE NOT WHITE FUNK!" ...
...yeah, OK mate.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:39 (seven years ago) link
No-one is losing their minds, the fact you have no clue about what you're talking about, as usual, is just irritating.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:40 (seven years ago) link
That's all.
But, fair enough, I occasionally might blunder into a Paul McCartney thread, or whatever, to make inane comments, I hold my hand up.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:43 (seven years ago) link
ah more ad hominem strawman attacks impugning people's tastes, always a good route to go down. Why don't you just come out and say that TH fans are racist for not liking "real" funk music and be done with it.
(ftr Average White Band, Wild Cherry and KC and the Sunshine Band have some jams)
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:50 (seven years ago) link
if you can't tell the difference between what AWB or Wild Cherry do and what TH do idk what to tell you. These bands are not alike.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:51 (seven years ago) link
I was going to say earlier, enough of the attacks on AWB!
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:51 (seven years ago) link
xxxpost:
I think you'll find the music speaks for itself, Tom. It's others that project stuff onto it. Given that you're generally someone who perceives himself to have some sort of sophisticated and exotic taste, it surprises me none to find you're offended. Sorry to burst your bubble, it wasn't intentional.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:53 (seven years ago) link
Yes, but as I said above Yes and Genesis have different approaches and they're still prog.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:54 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF866xp-tag
Clearly the music speaks for itself and this is funk music. Anyone who thinks that's weird is secretly racist.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:00 (seven years ago) link
^ Typed with a tears and semen stained fist.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:01 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QBFMmIZTVs
Just another kind of funk, y'know.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:03 (seven years ago) link
I don't think that analogy holds water for a number of reasons (not the least of which is that one is based primarily on the race of the performers - always dubious). Yes and Genesis have different approaches but my marginal familiarity with both recognizes some basic similarities - high concept song-suites with complex narratives, an extension and expansion of ideas initially developed from UK 60s psych, etc.
The same cannot be said of AWB and Talking Heads. AWB are a pastiche of (primarily) the JBs, focused almost exclusively on tight, interlocking horn riffs and a rhythm section that closely replicates the grooves and beats of James Brown-derived American funk bands (Kool & the Gang, etc.). Talking Heads do not do this, their polyglot approach is more about the juxtaposition of disparate elements, nothing is slavishly recreated, the various elements are combined and obscured and mixed up.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:03 (seven years ago) link
There's literally nothing but strawmen and ad hominem attacks with Turrican. Completely blank. And a piece of shit. So that's basically that.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:04 (seven years ago) link
Obviously, there's the occassional diversion from white funk territory, but when their entire discography is taken into consideration that is what is dominant.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:06 (seven years ago) link
At least until the Speaking in Tongues era I think of the TH as sort of academic anti-funk. They were one of those bands, like VU (iirc) who made a point of avoiding blues licks and progressions, at least early on. If anything they presage no wave as much as new wave, not unlike Devo. TH's Al Green cover is to funk/soul sort of what Devo's "Satisfaction" is to rock, sort of a weirdly sideways glance.
Josh OTM. It's that POV that is most explicit in "The Big Country": detached, skeptical of appetite and happiness. Part of what makes Little Creatures sufferable is how it feels like they earned that joy of parenthood, instead of viewing it from a distance.
― Eazy, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:06 (seven years ago) link
but when their entire discography is taken into consideration that is what is dominant
I don't think this is accurate at all
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:08 (seven years ago) link
Turrican, what are the TH songs that are representative of white funk? What funk songs do they remind you of?
― Moodles, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:08 (seven years ago) link
I think you'll find the music speaks for itself, Tom. It's others that project stuff onto it. Given that you're generally someone who perceives himself to have some sort of sophisticated and exotic taste, it surprises me none to find you're offended. Sorry to burst your bubble, it wasn't intentional
I am offended by someone posting ill-informed nonsense which they fondly imagine, and apparently persist in fondly imagining, is provocative but is, in fact, mere ill-informed nonsense. I'll pass over the rest of your post o_0
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:10 (seven years ago) link
Not even remotely.
bizarrely reductionist take on a band whose string of charting singles in the US indicates a pretty strange breadth, only one of which can accurately be described as a "white band playing funk music" (let's see if you can spot it!)
Psycho KillerTake Me to the RiverLife During WartimeBurning Down the HouseThis Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)And She WasWild Wild Life
xp
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:10 (seven years ago) link
It's really not, Turrican. There is no reason to call it 'white funk' when terms like 'new wave' or 'post-punk' are both wider and more precise. If Talking Heads is a funk-band, then Gang of Four is a funk-band, The Contortions is a funk-band, Liquid Liquid is a funk-band, ESG is a funk-band, !!! is a funk-band, Franz Ferdinand is a funk-band. So much is funk, and then the term doesn't really say anything, other than it's white people making music slightly more syncopated than Rolling Stones...
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:12 (seven years ago) link
I imagine what Turrican was referring to, with regard to TH, was more in the area of the Gang of Four and, I don't know, Pigbag(?) than the Average White Band or Wild Cherry. Art school funk.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:17 (seven years ago) link
It's great of you guys to make out that funk was just a coat that Talking Heads were trying on but... no, it's a dominant part of their DNA.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:17 (seven years ago) link
(Rolling Stones totally a white funk band btw)
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:18 (seven years ago) link
Side project Tom Tom Club, though, does fall closer into the category.
― Eazy, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:18 (seven years ago) link
Οὖτις OTM above re: the juxtaposition of disparate elements. "Funk band" to my ears is like The Dap-Kings, a recreation of a particular era of R&B music. There is so much more going on in Talking Heads' music that this seems just ridiculously reductive.
― "Celebration" encourages the listener to celebrate good times. (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:18 (seven years ago) link
there's funk in there, but there's a distance from it, and it's combined with a bunch of other things that don't bear any relationship or resemblance to funk.
Rolling Stones is a white r'n'b band.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:19 (seven years ago) link
I... don't think that's an insane way to describe the Stones?
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:21 (seven years ago) link
Honestly, Talking Heads is closer to being a white r'n'b band too. I could call Remain in Light a funk-record, Stop Making Sense a funk concert, sure. But the idea that funk is a 'dominant part of their DNA' basically just tells me that Turrican knows nothing about Talking Heads nor funk.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:21 (seven years ago) link
where is the funk here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKW7JkHKm8
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:22 (seven years ago) link
etc. What I'm getting from this thread is that Turrican has just heard Remain In Light for the first time.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:24 (seven years ago) link
just another slab o' funk, remember all those marching zydeco accordian arrangements James Brown used to do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtCittJyr0
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:24 (seven years ago) link
(xp) Which is no crime btw.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:25 (seven years ago) link
TBF the bass plays a syncope every second measure in Heaven. So it's kinda funk, right?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:27 (seven years ago) link
You would be wrong, Tom.
(x-post)
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:29 (seven years ago) link
Oh right, you haven't even heard it yet.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:30 (seven years ago) link
Ha! Okay Tom, you're getting desperate now.
― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:32 (seven years ago) link
Well, yeah, I'm not a fan of this band but, of what I've heard, I only really think of them as funk-based in the Remain in Light/Stop Making Sense era. I do like "Road to Nowhere" and "Psycho Killer" a lot btw! xps
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:34 (seven years ago) link
an outtake from "Mothership Connection" iirc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvua6zPIi7c
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:35 (seven years ago) link
I'm hoping anyone using roaming minutes in Florida as their phone batteries have 3 percent power doesn't find this thread.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:36 (seven years ago) link
Apologies to everyone in the world.
― Wewlay Bewlay (Tom D.), Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:37 (seven years ago) link
'Funk' really just means thinking ever so slightly about rhythms, right?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:40 (seven years ago) link
funk is a joint rolled in toilet paper iirc
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 16:41 (seven years ago) link