On Aug 8, 11:59 pm, jean-yves hervé
cs.uri.edu> wrote:>>> 10) I never understand why Talking Heads are supposed to be great.
>
>> You don't understand much music, so it shouldn't be hard for anyone to
>> see why you don't understand anything beyond your pet bands.
>
> As much as it pains me to agree with the raja, I also think that Talking
> Heads is one of the most overrated bands of all time. Â Besides a
> particular demographics (basically, people who were in college in the
> late 80s, give or take a couple of years) nobody gives a rat's ass about
> them. Â They influenced no one, they were barely competent at their
> instruments, and their music and lyrics, despite the band's
> "intellectual" ambitions, were really nothing special.
>
> jyh.
>
> PS. Â Forgive me for this feel-good moment. Â As far as I can remember, my
> first usenet post ever was a rant/hatchet job on Talking heads,
> sometimes in 1989 I think. Â In fact I think that I mostly react to the
> attitude of the groupies who seem to be under the impression that if you
> don't like TH you probably don't "get it", as if there was that much to
> "get" from their stuff.
I disagree with virtually everything you've said here. First of all,
your chronology is way off. At first I thought it might be a simple
typographical error, but you give the same general date twice and it
is wrong both times. Talking Heads formed in the mid-70s and released
their first album in 1977. They were part of the groundbreaking punk/
new wave scene at CBGB that dominated cutting-edge American rock in
the late 70s. By the time the Heads went on a brief hiatus in 1982,
they had released all their most important studio albums. Their next
phase saw them become dramatically more commercially successful, with
"Speaking in Tongues" and its accompanying tour, documented in "Stop
Making Sense," and then the pop-ish "Little Creatures." By the time of
your introductory 1989 "rant," Talking Heads had already released
their final studio album, were a spent force creatively, and had all
but officially broken up.
"Influenced no one" is an absurd claim. Practically everything Talking
Heads did in their heyday proved to be enormously influential. Their
late 70s sound had a tremendous impact on then-gestating British
postpunk (Ian McCulloch of Echo & the Bunnyment has attested to the
Heads' influence), and thus influenced rock throughout the following
decade -- and in the current decade as well, given the neo-postpunk
movement of the 2000s. The Heads' subsequent art-funk phase also
helped shaped the sound of later bands; compare "Remain in
Light" (1980) with Shriekback's "Oil and Gold" a half-decade later.
Radiohead even named themselves after a song on the Heads' "True
Stories" album. And Talking Heads' memorable music videos for "Once in
A Lifetime" and "Burning Down the House" were widely admired and
imitated.
"No one gives a rat's ass" is similarly ridiculous; you must travel in
very narrow circles. The Heads were voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of
Fame in their first year of eligibility; whether or not that honor
matters to you, obviously *someone* cares about the Heads' legacy --
quite a lot. "Stop Making Sense" is commonly considered the greatest
rock concert movie of all time.
I don't have the time nor the inclination to address in detail your
argument that the Heads' music and lyrics were "nothing special."
Suffice it to say that the reality is precisely the opposite, and that
Talking Heads' fusion of punk, postpunk, pop, and Afro-funk is among
the most creative and innovative rock oeuvres since the Beatles.
Joe Ramirez
