Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Talking Heads
Fear of Music
(Sire, 1979)
NY multiplex art rockers' third shakes hips, detects heightened significance everywhere.
Talking Heads frontman and writer David Byrne told producer Brian Eno that their third LP was "music to do housework to". Bearing in mind this album has a song called Paper, which equates paper with romance, who knows what metaphors might be gleaned from hoovering or doing the laundry? This kind of disengaged reasoning, where seemingly unconnected phenomena become so many connecting synapses, is all over Fear Of Music, which came in a sleeve embossed with the pattern of stainless steel flooring. But if it can be oblique and nervy - see how opener I Zimbra places gibberish verbiage by Dada poet Hugo Ball within a dense Afro-rhythm-a-thon - there's a sense of vitality and even fun in this whistle-able, propellant music that somehow seems milliseconds out of sync with itself. There are some top pop moments; Life During Wartime manages to sound mundane and dangerous, and Cities sees Byrne barking like a dog; the sweetly sad Heaven, meanwhile, makes eternal life sound dead boring as "a place where nothing ever happens." The feverish rhythms and outré psych-states would find more commercial expression on 1980's Remain In Light, but to play music as strange as this and still get paying customers is still a thing of wonder.
Ian Harrison
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 23/02/2009
Further Listening
Talking Heads – Remain In Light (Sire, 1980)
New Order – Power, Corruption & Lies (Factory, 1983)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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For me this is the the peak before the ego+jealosy rot of RIL set in. Byrne eclipsed Jerry, Chris and Tina to their collective detriment. Remember the rhubarb over writing credits? Here there is awesome cohesion, particularly "Memories Can't Wait" -- as heavy as they got, and "Drugs" -- with all due credit to Eno; it's that flat, utilitarian 1979 disaffect, but so much going on in the mix. TH at their full height.
Posted by thisearsmine at 8:35 AM GMT 24/02/2009 Report Abuse
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Wonderful album. I still have my original vinyl edition with additional 7" single. Oh yes!!!
If they have not been done yet, surely it is high time for an in depth feature on da Heads in MOJO?
Posted by Simon F at 1:56 PM GMT 24/02/2009 Report Abuse
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The song that always got me on FoM is Drugs. What an amazing track- Eno's treatments give a peaceful state of mind dutifully torn apart by Byrne's fantastically hyperactive vocal, giving a pitch-perfect impression of a detoxing junkie. An abstract ending to a harmonious album. Gotta love a band willing to do that to a listener.
Posted by maarts at 9:26 AM GMT 25/02/2009 Report Abuse
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