Talking Heads - Remain In Light poll

I wonder how much truth there is in the story around The Overload. It's a bit too cute, and I have a hard time imagining that Eno, at least, hadn't heard Joy Division.

The final track on the album, "The Overload," was Talking Heads' attempt to emulate the sound of British post-punk band Joy Division. The song was made despite no band member having heard the music of Joy Division; rather, it was based on an idea of what the British quartet might sound like based on descriptions in the music press. The track features "tribal-cum-industrial" beats created primarily by Harrison and Byrne.[28]

also voting for "Crosseyed and Painless." wonder if it would be released today how successful it would be?

this is one of those albums where every song is a favorite at some point

Crosseyed is so good on SMS.

this is one of those albums where every song is a favorite at some point
otm - seen and not seen might be my fave at the moment

What better opening lines are there than "Lost my shape / Trying to act casual"?

hey this is 34 years young this week, i did see dog latin's post but didn't really pay attention to the date i posted in the original post.

It's all one long song.

that's a nice way of looking at it that I had never considered

seen and not seen has great kafka/twillight zone crossover lyrics

Love how no one is going for Once in a Lifetime. May go for Once in a Lifetime a song that sounds like everyone is starting at a different count in the measure, and probably is, making it almost unplayable live as recorded, which may be why the T Heads, who generally don't radically deviate from the records, rearranges that one live. Same with Zep and Black Dog, though of course Zep was a lot looser live.

On the cusp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wp2qhoop9U

"Born Under Punches" for me...Belew's anti solo is phenomenal

On any day the answer could have been any of them, but today "The Great Curve" takes it - their most furious collective groove.

I really want to know whether Belew's "Born Under Punches" solo was actually played that way, or was it edited together from a dozen different bits.

Likely Belew through a guitar synth and/or being manipulated via Eno, a la Manzanera's "Gun" solo.

Curiously, Byrne plays it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVIKF03KkVM

4:20.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

born under punches

C&P

someone on rockgenius has annotated the 'A more hooked nose/wider, thinner lips/beady eyes/a larger forehead' bit of Seen and Not Seen with this photo:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/NicCageFace.jpg

Interestingly, the 4 specific physical traits Byrne mentions are all stereotypically “villainous” facial features.

in high school I spent a fascinated hour sussing the instrumental credits.

Gonna rep for that background vocal movement in 'Seen and Not Seen'

great curve

This is an impossible poll.

when it was actually time to vote I ended up being won over, yet again, by the background keyboard swirl on OIAL

Could be any song on this album, TBH. But I've narrowed it down between The Great Curve and Houses In Motion. HIM has that monster bassline; but TGC has the chanting bits. Argh. So tough.

(I'd never heard that story about The Overload, and funnily, with that in mind, it's one of the better JD pastiches I've heard. I always love the idea of bands trying to emulate other music they've never heard, based on press descriptions.)

the great curve, for the chants and the solo at the end imo

the 'what goes on' aping at the end of once in a lifetime, tho....

voted for born under punches but it could have been almost any other song.

I voted The Overload, just because.

the 'what goes on' aping at the end of once in a lifetime, tho....

Please help me understand what is going on in the last 40 seconds of "Once in a Lifetime"

Love this album, I like how the production is really complex but it sounds organic rather than overproduced. Really disappointed by the flat/simple sound of the following album 'Speaking In Tongues'.

Every song could win for a different reason but Once In A Lifetime gets my vote for how staple it is at the same time as being completely insane

Once In A Lifetime is perfectly double-headed, in two keys at the same time, the downbeat in two places, both sung and spoken, there has been no better musical metaphor for existing in two places at once <3 <3

Stevie D otm re: Once In A Lifetime

just wanna remind you all that this is the best 40 seconds in recorded music history

― Gay Fire Beautiful Dong (Stevie D(eux)), Sunday, September 7, 2014 11:17 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one of the 20 albums I want to be buried with... cause "I'm a tumbler... I'm a government man."

What with a deadly pandemic and market correction in progress, this is a perfect album for this month.

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

Cool, everything got a vote.

wow that is a lot of votes. i guess this album really is top heavy.

and the lurkers take it

I don't think I voted. +1 for 'Seen and Not Seen' then.

wow that is a lot of votes. i guess this album really is top heavy.

― Bee OK, Monday, October 13, 2014 8:56 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'M SAYIN'

79 votes for side A to 19 votes for side B

a terrible signal too weak to even recognize!

Technically, that's 54 for Side A and 44 for Side B--"Once in a Lifetime" opened Side B. It's top heavy by design, since they sequenced it to slow down as it went.

an 8-way tie is the only thing that really would have satisfied me

Houses wuz robbed

the top results are understandable because that's where the upbeat stuff is, but man there are a whole bunch of people who don't get RiL

Some of you people just about missed it!

Wasn't it quite common back then for vinyl albums to have the tracklisting out of order on the back?

No

lol to be honest at the time i assumed it was some kind of deliberate eno/byrne conceptual thing, like the obscure strategy card said "put the track listing out of order"

can't wait to do this poll. it will be the next one that i do.

Wasn't it quite common back then for vinyl albums to have the tracklisting out of order on the back?

― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Tuesday, August 23, 2016 4:07 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah actually i swear i've seen this before...not sure...

IIRC, Let It Bleed did this.

I'm excited for this poll too, Bee OK!

xps I've seen it a bunch of times. I think Lennon/Ono's 'Double Fantasy' does this. Usually it's because the track order wasn't finalised before going to print.

I'll check my copy of DF when I get home. This might've been somewhat common because the window between mixing/mastering and printing the jackets was so much shorter in the 70s/80s.

40 years old today!

well shit, didn't know it came out three days after i was born. there's a thing

"Listening Wind" is so unspeakably beautiful.

In Kurt Cobain's Journals, there is a page for potential NEVERMIND producers. I
was impressed that he considered Dave Jerden, and he cited NOTHING'S SHOCKING and
his engineering work on REMAIN IN LIGHT

I watched Stop Making Sense for the umpteenth time on Monday and was surprised to notice only two songs from RiL on there. I think they recorded a version of The Great Curve but it didn't make the cut

Setlist FM is good for these things; The Great Curve was last performed in 1981

https://www.setlist.fm/stats/talking-heads-3bd6b808.html

Typical sets for the SMS tour looked like this

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/talking-heads/1983/saratoga-performing-arts-center-saratoga-springs-ny-73d522f5.html

It's amazing they did so little of RIL, although i guess minus Belew some of those songs were impossible.

After doing so many weird extended jams of those songs on the previous tours I'm not surprised they moved away from RiL a bit. That being said Ive always been disappointed that a version of "Houses in Motion" didnt make it into the film, that must have been so great with the SMS band.

Dirty Mind and Remain in Light landing on the same day. A bright spot before a shitty end to that year.

you don't even have to click the link, how convenient:

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/nine-inch-nails-trent-reznor-favourite-album-talking-heads-remain-in-light/

First sentence of that clickbait:

There aren’t many musicians in the public eye right now who is quite as expansive as Nine Inch Nails maestro Trent Reznor.

But there is also a link to the real piece, which is here:

https://vinylwriters.com/trent-reznor-on-talking-heads-remain-in-light-1980/

And this is what Reznor said:

There are a few candidates for this question, but one of my absolutely favorite records is Remain In Light by the Talking Heads. It is an album I didn’t understand when I listened to it for the first time in the beginning of the 80s. Back then, I was living in a rural small-town that was widely cut off from interesting culture. And then suddenly this album landed. A strange, synthetic, polyrhytmical piece of art with African influences which confused me in every way. With good albums it is the case that at the beginning you don’t know what you are actually dealing with. But you are fascinated by it, and with about six listens it slowly reveals itself to you. With the 10th listen you are completely thrilled, but even when you listen for the 30th time you still discover something new. Remain In Light taught me that. The record enlightened and changed me. It showed me what music can do, how song structures can look like, or how drum parts can interact with other parts. Since I started making music myself, this wonderful album has been something I can always consult. The great thing is that the record can still be approached from so many different directions without losing its puzzles.

I had the privilege to moderate an evening of public discussion with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne in 2012. He had written a book called “How Music Works” and I was asked to take part in its reading tour. He is a super nice guy and a true gentleman.