Speaking In Tongues - Talking Heads

This collection of tracks comes a couple years after the last part of the trilogy, of albums recorded with Brian Eno, the last part “Remain in Light” is still this bands “zenith” in my humble option, at no other time since have they been so inventive and groundbreaking, no with this album the lessons learned with their former producer have been taken in another direction, the only repeating theme is the use of “African” ...
...& “Remain in Light”.

The possible reason for this with this album is that the band have taken the duties of producer as a collective between themselves, don’t get me wrong this is not a bad album but without the inventive genius that is Eno there is something missing, but what they have done with this album is bring the mixing skills of the late Alex Sadkin who worked with Grace Jones and men known as the “Rhythm ... more

This collection of tracks comes a couple years after the last part of the trilogy, of albums recorded with Brian Eno, the last part “Remain in Light” is still this bands “zenith” in my humble option, at no other time since have they been so inventive and groundbreaking, no with this album the lessons learned with their former producer have been taken in another direction, the only repeating theme is the use of “African” percussion as with the previous 2 albums “Fear of Music & “Remain in Light”.

The possible reason for this with this album is that the band have taken the duties of producer as a collective between themselves, don’t get me wrong this is not a bad album but without the inventive genius that is Eno there is something missing, but what they have done with this album is bring the mixing skills of the late Alex Sadkin who worked with Grace Jones and men known as the “Rhythm Twins” better known as Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare.

With Mr Sadkin’s experience with reggae music he brought to the table a sense of pop music that paid off, for this is Talking Heads most commercial collection they ever released in my option.

From the opening track of “Burning Down the House” that has been so badly covered in resent years as to make me cringe every time I hear it.

To he wonderful song that is “This must be the Place (naïve melody)”, the album as a whole is just so easy to listen to, not to say that it falls into the “easy-listening” category, no far from it the words are as surreal as always.

As with most of the bands output the lyrics where written by the lead vocalist and front man of the band David Byrne, as always only David knows what all his words are about.
But where the words have hidden meaning the music on the whole album is very accessible.
Another element that made this recording funkier than before was the use of the keyboard player Bernie Worrell from “Funkadelic” & “Parliament “and the choppy guitar work of Alex Weir doing his best to sound like Nile Rodgers of “Chic” fame.

Another possible reason in my option for the more commercial sound of this recording is, this would turn out to be their last studio recording for the label “Sire” and they wanted their swansong for that label to be less experimental in nature to impress their new label “EMI”.

In the decades that have passed since the release of this album and the others in bands back catalogue no one at “Sire” has thought to re-issue this album or any other Talking Heads album I find this to be criminal oversight on their part, the bands whole collection on that label should be all re-mastered and restored for the 21st century post haste…
 

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