Talking Heads

Talking Heads entered the scene fueled by anxious drive, emotional distance, and restrained simplicity. Roughly a dozen years afterward, upon issuing their final album, the group had explored terrain ranging from art-funk to densely layered global rhythm studies and concise, tuneful guitar pop. From the 1977 debut through the 1988 swan song, Talking Heads earned a place among the decade’s most respected acts while still securing several mainstream successes. Although segments of the work can register as excessively calculated in their experimentation, sharpness, and intellect, the band’s strongest material captures the finest traits of art-college punk.

The members were in fact art-college punks. Guitarist and vocalist David Byrne, drummer Chris Frantz, and bassist Tina Weymouth first crossed paths at the Rhode Island School of Design during the early ’70s and relocated to New York in 1974 to focus on music. The following year the band secured an opening slot for the Ramones at the influential New York punk venue CBGB. In 1976 keyboardist Jerry Harrison, previously of Jonathan Richman’s Modern Lovers, joined the lineup. By 1977 Talking Heads had signed with Sire Records and delivered Talking Heads: 77, which drew strong praise for its lean rock & roll, especially Byrne’s awkward, hyper-analytical lyrics and unsettled, spasmodic delivery.

On the follow-up, 1978’s More Songs About Buildings and Food, the band collaborated with producer Brian Eno to craft meticulously arranged, artful pop tracks that featured inventive blends of acoustic and electronic instruments along with unexpected yet convincing funk accents. With the next Eno-produced effort, Fear of Music, Talking Heads leaned more heavily on the rhythm section and introduced African-derived polyrhythmic touches. That direction reached its peak on 1980’s Remain in Light, again produced by Eno. The group expanded its lineup with additional players, including a horn section, allowing fuller exploration of an intricate fusion of African percussion, funk bass and keyboards, pop structures, and electronics.

Following an extended tour, the members turned to individual projects for a few years. By the time of 1983’s Speaking in Tongues, Talking Heads had parted ways with Eno, resulting in an album that retained the rhythmic advances of Remain in Light while fitting them into tighter pop-song frameworks. After its release the band undertook another lengthy tour documented in the Jonathan Demme-directed concert film Stop Making Sense. Following the direct pop album Little Creatures in 1985, Byrne made his directorial debut with True Stories the next year; the subsequent Talking Heads album incorporated songs from that film. Two years later the band issued Naked, a return to worldbeat explorations that occasionally revealed Byrne’s lyrical self-indulgence.

After Naked, Talking Heads entered a period of hiatus. Byrne pursued solo work, Harrison did the same, and Frantz and Weymouth continued their side project Tom Tom Club. In 1991 the group formally announced its breakup. Harrison’s production career soon flourished with successful albums by Live and Crash Test Dummies. In 1996 the original lineup minus Byrne reconvened for No Talking Just Head; Byrne filed suit against Frantz, Weymouth, and Harrison for recording and performing under the Talking Heads name, so the trio operated as the Heads. In 1999 all four reunited to promote a fifteenth-anniversary edition of Stop Making Sense and later appeared together at the 2002 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Throughout the 2010s Byrne issued numerous solo and collaborative projects. Tom Tom Club maintained an active touring schedule, while Harrison produced albums for acts including No Doubt, the Von Bondies, and Hockey.