Talking Heads

Talking Heads are the last of CBGB's original Big Four to record (following Patti Smith, the
Ramones and Television), and their debut is an absolute triumph. Dressing like a quartet of
Young Republicans, playing courteously toned-down music and singing lyrics lauding civil
servants, parents and college, Talking Heads are not even remotely punks. Rather, they
are the great Ivy League hope of pop music. I can't recall when I last heard such... More >

A debut LP will often seem overrefined to habitues of a band's scene, so it's not surprising that many CBGBites felt betrayed when bits of this came out sounding like Sparks or Yes. Personally, I was even more put off by lyrics that fleshed out the Heads' post-Jonathan Richman, so-hip-we're-straight image; when David Byrne says "don't worry about the government," the irony is that he's not being ironic. But the more I listen the more I believe the Heads set themselves the task of hurdling such limitations, and succeed. Like Sparks, these are spoiled kids, but without the callowness or adolescent misogyny; like Yes, they are wimps, but without vagueness or cheap romanticism. Every tinkling harmony is righted with a screech, every self-help homily contextualized dramatically, so that in the end the record proves not only that the detachment of craft can coexist with a frightening intensity of feeling--something most artists know--but that the most inarticulate rage can be rationalized. Which means they're punks after all. (Grade: A-)