Fear of Music
Sire, 1979
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_Heads
REVIEW BY: Sean McCarthy
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 05/11/2009
Critics usually point to Remain In Light as the Talking Heads’ masterstroke. And while not to take away anything from that album, Fear Of Music, the album the band recorded to close out the ‘70s, may actually be the better album of the two. The album was the second album under the helm of producer Brian Eno. The Eno/Talking Heads collaboration got off to a great start with More Songs About Buildings And Food, but this disc was where the relationship really took off.
The cover, which looks like a manhole cover spray painted with another fresh coat of jet black, is a great indicator of a listener’s experience once they put on Fear Of Music. The band is going to take you further underground than any of their previous albums. The sound is definitely urban, but its paranoia and edginess reveal a greater human element than any of their releases up to this point.
This disc represented Talking Heads at their most experimental (the full embrace of African-style music on “I Zimbra”), their most urgent (“Life During A Wartime”) and their most straightforward musicianship (“Paper,” “Drugs”). The band’s love of ‘70s funk was greatly toned down, favoring more driving guitars by Jerry Harrison and David Byrne and less bass from Tina Weymouth. Unlike their first two albums, drummer Chris Frantz is also heavily relied upon to create the dense atmosphere here.
If Fear Of Music was the Talking Heads’ most daring album, it was also their most depressing album. I first heard “Memories Can’t Wait” from Living Colour’s cover. Listening to Talking Heads’ version, in contrast, is a jarring experience. First off, the reverb from the guitar automatically creates a dizzying atmosphere and Byrne’s voice sounds like it was recorded in the lowest subway tunnel on Earth. “Heaven,” one of the more poppier songs on the album contains a beautiful letdown of a chorus: “Heaven is a place / A place where nothing ever happens.” In the minimal, eerie closer, “Drugs,” Byrne simply states “I’m charged up…I’m kinda wooden…Don’t feel like talking…don’t mess around.”
If the depressing lyrics and odd experimentation is off-putting, not to worry, Fear Of Music is as catchy as any of AC/DCs best albums. It’s hard to peg how the band was able to create such a poppy album that features claustrophobic lyrics about human interaction and song structures that few mainstream bands were experimenting with in the late ‘70s, but the band accomplishes just that feat. Song-by-song, it represents the Talking Heads at the top of their game.