Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

A very large portion of their catalog doesn't really relate to funk at all. Not sure how you connect 77 or MSABAF to white funk.

Yeah, I was going to say while TH didn't really appropriate the music that they were listening to, plenty of bands (like Arcade Fire) have made careers from appropriating TH, as well as others. That TH track that samples Francis Bebey and sounds a bit ABBA-ish for example; TH used samples and loved disco but they wouldn't have done something like that. They were quite methodical about it too - like with I Zimbra, the closest thing they came to sounding like afrobeat, using a Dadaist poem as the lyrics etc...

TH used samples? Where?

I never understood Arcade Fire comparisons to TH. I don't think anything Arcade Fire has ever done has sounded particularly like Talking Heads, save their early Talking Heads cover, perhaps.

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.

Deep down, everyone knows the AF's primary influence is John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band.

TH used samples? Where?

― Moodles, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 4:01 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts is famous for its use of sampling, but rather than sampling disco or afrobeat records to prove their hip cultural cache, they sampled preachers off of Christian radio

Not really TH exactly

I never understood Arcade Fire comparisons to TH. I don't think anything Arcade Fire has ever done has sounded particularly like Talking Heads, save their early Talking Heads cover, perhaps.

A whole bunch of their last two albums are clearly influenced by Talking Heads, but clearly missing the point. It's as though Win Butler listened to TH (much in the same way as Turrican) and thought 'Now that's good - white people doing disco - I can do that too!'. And so he litters his tracks with afrobeat references and disco strings, whacks in some pseudo-paranoiac lyrics about the modern world, and thinks he's done some great work. That, in my view, is a form of appropriation - riding the same ideas but totally missing the point.

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

Fear of Music isn't esp. funky, of course.

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?

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.

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.

"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.

No-one is losing their minds, the fact you have no clue about what you're talking about, as usual, is just irritating.

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.

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)

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.

I was going to say earlier, enough of the attacks on AWB!

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.

Yes, but as I said above Yes and Genesis have different approaches and they're still prog.

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.

^ Typed with a tears and semen stained fist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QBFMmIZTVs

Just another kind of funk, y'know.

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.

There's literally nothing but strawmen and ad hominem attacks with Turrican. Completely blank. And a piece of shit. So that's basically that.

Obviously, there's the occassional diversion from white funk territory, but when their entire discography is taken into consideration that is what is dominant.

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.

but when their entire discography is taken into consideration that is what is dominant

I don't think this is accurate at all

Turrican, what are the TH songs that are representative of white funk? What funk songs do they remind you of?

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

I don't think this is accurate at all

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 Killer
Take Me to the River
Life During Wartime
Burning Down the House
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
And She Was
Wild Wild Life

xp

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...

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.

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.

(Rolling Stones totally a white funk band btw)

Side project Tom Tom Club, though, does fall closer into the category.

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.

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.

xp

Rolling Stones is a white r'n'b band.

I... don't think that's an insane way to describe the Stones?

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.

where is the funk here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKW7JkHKm8

etc. What I'm getting from this thread is that Turrican has just heard Remain In Light for the first time.

just another slab o' funk, remember all those marching zydeco accordian arrangements James Brown used to do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtCittJyr0

(xp) Which is no crime btw.

TBF the bass plays a syncope every second measure in Heaven. So it's kinda funk, right?

You would be wrong, Tom.

(x-post)