Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

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)

Oh right, you haven't even heard it yet.

Ha! Okay Tom, you're getting desperate now.

Well, yeah, I'm not a fan of this band but, of what I've heard, I only really think of them as funk-based in the Remain in Light/Stop Making Sense era. I do like "Road to Nowhere" and "Psycho Killer" a lot btw! xps

an outtake from "Mothership Connection" iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvua6zPIi7c

I'm hoping anyone using roaming minutes in Florida as their phone batteries have 3 percent power doesn't find this thread.

Apologies to everyone in the world.

'Funk' really just means thinking ever so slightly about rhythms, right?

funk is a joint rolled in toilet paper iirc

watch out folks, turri's expounding heads band

ok lol

Haha!!

A whole bunch of their last two albums are clearly influenced by Talking Heads,

Well, yeah. But inexplicably people were comparing them to TH c. "Funeral," which is so not TH.

calm down, nerds.

Um...TH are definitely funk. As is Gang of Four and the Stones are r'n'b. Everyone knows this. The ridiculous part is claiming Remain In Light is derivative or for people who don't listen to r'n'b genres. Remain In Light is a perfect album for Fela Kuti fans who want to hear that groove taken places.

Steering away from this madness, it occurred to me that I've never heard any of jerry harrison's solo records. What's good?

they are not good

The Red and the Black rips off so much of Remain in Light's sound that Byrne could have sued Harrison for plagiarism (if Harrison hadn't been part of creating that sound.) The other ones I can't even remember.

If everything syncopated is funk, then Talking Heads is definitely sorta kinda a funk band? The really insane thing is that Turrican then says Can isn't a funk band. So The Overload is funk, but this isn't?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp6oPyQnX60

Btw one of the first reviews of Arcade Fire I remember reading called them a funkpunk band. Guess that's halfway to being a TH cover band, then?

Of course Can aren't a funk band.

Now you're getting the picture.

Halleluhwah is funk

Tom, you'd have a point if I hadn't already said the same thing a zillion posts up.

The point being that playing funky stuff every so often doesn't make you a funk band.

TBF to Tom you never ever do anything but repeat yourself, so it's kinda hard to react to.