let's talk about talking heads.

at first i really liked this, but then it wore thin...

when i got to "the great curve", i started thinking about "she is moving to describe the world" and suddenly the album's afro-mysticism became deeply embarrassing to me. i might have been embarrassed because RIL is the closest thing to an afropop album that i actually own, despite having liked, sometimes loved, what i've heard of it. but buying afropop here is like buying a rolling stones record anywhere - an admission of defeat, somehow. i don't quite understand what i mean by that, but i'm gonna leave it there. the last time i felt like a tourist listener was 'blonde on blonde', but i'm not as comfortable losing my foothold in this place. i found it in drum machines, and i'm not about to lose it over polyrhythmic guitars. i don't know what i mean.

I think 'with hip hop ears' is probably a fit way to listen to that record (or at the very least more fit than with most other post-punk records). it's been 'hugely influential' etc. etc. on hip hop. the arch of a song on RIL isn't too different from a standard rap song. The only thing that's out of place is the guitar solos, but on this album I really like the damn guitar solos!!

Mitch, I don't see exactly what you mean about the afro-mysticism, but then again I own and love Rolling Stones records... we're in distinctly different places

#1 myth I'd like to address on this thread = "talking heads: a good band for teenagers." I'm still a teenager (19), and they're my favorite, but it doesn't feel so impermanent

I don't understnad. Are you saying the myth is true of false?

I was about 18 or 19 when I started listening to them too, and they're still one of my favorites. I have no idea what Mitch meant when he said he was embarrassed about the afropop. Or the Rolling Stones, for that matter. Where are you, mitch, where this great music causes you such shame?

true or false, obv.

By the way, what is the "new Talking Album" that is mentioned a lot in the book 'American Psycho'

The other day during a long car-ride, my brother was playing DJ, and he put RiL on right after Fela Kuti (which, driving along in the intense weather, I had really been getting into). It was an interesting contrast because, for once, RiL was relatively a lot less 'African-sounding'--It sounded punk-rock--and, interestingly in contrast to Mitch's post, there was a lot less romanticizing of Africa.

Also, David Byrne is the best guitarist of all time. Discuss.

With Little Creatures, the sounds got less great. "Road to Nowhere" is slick but stands up. My Alex in NYC moments were: "Once in a Lifetime" (live) being used under the opening credits for Down and Out in Beverly Hills; "This Must Be the Place" being used as the soundtrack for the apartment makeover scene in Oliver Stone's Wallstreet. Ugh!

i hear ya -- i was put off for a while from checking out the cure's back-catalogue after hearing a frat blasting standing on the beach really loudly.

Well sorta not really. I mean, they were as much a critic's band/cult curiosity as you can get while pulling pretty respectable Billboard album chart figures -- much like R.E.M. after Reckoning.

There's the indelible image of their first American Bandstand appearance, with all those kids enthusiastically (and rather desperately) trying to dance to "Take Me to the River."

there's a geuine bootleg from MAX'S KANSAS CITY (10 9 76) on slsk and it's fucking fantastic.

i used to have that! so good!

those early songs are my fave