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Talking Heads: 77 reissue, reviewed

David Quantick on Talking Heads debut album

By david quantick

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Talking Heads : 77
© Mick Rock Estate

When they make shows about 1977 and they bring out the old punk commentators, many of whom are themselves 77, one of the starting points for the reminiscing is the famed New York punk scene. This differed from the London punk scene in several ways, the first of which is that it wasn’t actually very punk. Yes, there was the Ramones, who were both the first and the last word in punk, but there was also Blondie, who were a glammed-up Shangri-Las, Television, who were French poetry and very long guitar breaks – and Talking Heads.

​Talking Heads were about as punk as a shoe. They dressed in a style known as “preppie” – short for “preparatory school”, meaning “like rich college kids.” This made them stand out, not from the proto-punk crowd in their leathers and jeans, but also from other rock bands. Where most groups aspired to look like Led Zeppelin or Foghat, Talking Heads looked like the kids who got a paddling in Animal House. They weren’t even “new wave”: that term might have described Blondie, referring as it did to bands who wrote 60s songs with power chords in them (and they definitely weren’t “power pop” which meant 60s songs with power chords sung by men in their ‘30s with thinning hair and Beatle jackets). ​

And where other groups had influences like the Stooges, Bowie and the New York Dolls, Talking Heads were fans of Al Green (they would later cover his Take Me To The River) and Doctor Feelgood, who they’d seen at CBGBs and been impressed by. That combination of styles – the thin, high brass section of Willie Mitchell’s productions for Al Green, and the choppy guitar sound of Wilko Johnson – made Talking Heads stand out from the others in the early days. Here, in a sea of biker jackets, drug references and general beat poet sleaze, a world where everyone looked like a rent boy or Patti Smith, was a band who wore buttoned-up polo shirts, played songs that were jerky and funky at the same time, and had a lead singer whose vocal delivery matched his pop-eyed stare and complete discomfort at even having a body. 

They sounded like nobody else: possibly there was a hint of Jonathan Richman’s Modern Lovers in there (and one of Talking Heads had been in the Modern Lovers) but everything else was new. The songs, though, were melodic and catchy, and you could dance to them: the lyrics were less friendly, and seemed to be about working for the civil service, or being an artist, or killing people. Whatever the stated emotion, the general mood seemed to be a kind of blankness, as if the singer were saying “it’s all the same to me”.

Talking Heads released some singles – the elegiac and almost twee (little birds tweet on it) ‘Love Goes To Building On Fire’, the terrifying ‘Psycho Killer’, which caused everyone to suddenly realise who it was the singer looked like, namely Anthony Perkins from Psycho – and then their debut album. It was plain red on the front and there was a picture of the band on the back: apart from that, no clues. And the music inside, it would be no exaggeration to say, changed the times.

It’s hard now – in a world where Talking Heads have rung all their changes, where we’ve had Remain In Light and ‘Road To Nowhere’, and Tom Tom Club, and My Life In The Bush of Ghosts, and Stop Making Sense – to realise the impact Talking Heads had when they began. Because while the first wave of new music from 1977 inspired hundreds of snotty gobbers playing power chords and shouting about how bored they were, the second wave inspired people to form, not rock bands, but something different. Bands who were a bit funky and a bit jerky all at the same time. Bands who did Al Green covers (‘L.O.V.E.’ by Orange Juice). Bands who revelled in fast rhythm guitar runs, new wavified disco bass lines, and singers who danced, and sang, like chickens.

The 3CD+blu-ray super deluxe of Talking Heads: 77

Before Talking Heads released Talking Heads: 77, new groups wanted to be the Stooges or the New York Dolls. They were, make-up or not, macho, phallic rockers. After 77, bands ditched the power chords, made records you could dance to, and created new sounds. You could still just about hear Al Green and Wilko Johnson; you could definitely hear Talking Heads. British bands as disparate as the Gang of Four, Orange Juice, XTC, the Raincoats, the Pop Group, the Slits, the Au Pairs, Haircut 100, ABC, all took on this non-phallic sound and created something new.

That was then: so what does Talking Heads: 77 sound like now? Well, in this latest incarnation, which in super deluxe vinyl form comes with repro copies of the original singles from the album – including the insane gallop of ‘Pulled Up’ and the catchy ‘Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town’ – alternate versions and an entire CBGB’s concert from 1977, it sounds fantastic. Every guitar chimes, every drum beat is a whomp, basslines are deep and funky, and throughout, the vocals are the sound of a man who is claiming to feel nothing while at the same time clearly feeling everything. It’s brilliant, and you can see how it changed everything: these songs manage to fit the whole Blank Generation vibe and also bring out the sheer mad enthusiasm of the era (not to mention half of Shane MacGowan’s famous comment about punk: “When we were excited, we sang about being bored.”)

Highlights include: still, ‘Psycho Killer’, for its perfect portrayal of a sociopath – “Say something once, why say it again?” – and its equally perfect stalker of a bass line: the aforementioned hurtle of ‘Pulled Up’, which pretty much invented Orange Juice and therefore the next 40 years of Scottish guitar pop: the sinister and relentless ‘No Compassion’: and the gorgeous ‘The Book I Read’: in fact, pretty much everything.

Talking Heads went on to do other, bigger, cleverer things, and may never have made a bad record: but this is where it, and a lot of other things besides, started.

Review by David Quantick. Talking Heads: 77 is out now, via Rhino. The D2C exclusive vinyl box with the seven-inch singles is available here. You can also order the 3CD+blu-ray version via the SDE shop.

Tracklisting

Talking Heads 77 Talking Heads /

    • CD 1: Original Album
      1. Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town
      2. New Feeling
      3. Tentative Decisions
      4. Happy Day
      5. Who Is It?
      6. No Compassion
      7. The Book I Read
      8. Don’t Worry About the Government
      9. First Week/Last Week… Carefree
      10. Psycho Killer
      11. Pulled Up
    • CD 2: Outtakes/Alternates/Rarities
      1. Sugar on My Tongue
      2. I Want to Live
      3. (Love Goes To) Building On Fire
      4. I Wish You Wouldn’t Say That
      5. Psycho Killer (Acoustic)
      6. Uh-Oh Love Comes to Town (Alternate Pop Version)
      7. New Feeling (Alternate Pop Version)
      8. Pulled Up (Alternate Pop Version) [Previously Unreleased]
      9. Stay Hungry (1977 Version)
      10. First Week/Last Week… Carefree (Acoustic)
      11. I Feel It in My Heart
      12. Psycho Killer (Alternate Version) [Previously Unreleased]
    • CD 3: Live
      1. (Love Goes To) Building On Fire (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      2. Don’t Worry About the Government (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously
      3. Unreleased]
      4. Take Me to the River (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      5. The Book I Read (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      6. New Feeling (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      7. A Clean Break (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      8. No Compassion (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      9. Thank You for Sending Me an Angel (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously
      10. Unreleased]
      11. Who Is It? (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      12. Pulled Up (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      13. Uh-Oh Love Comes to Town (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      14. Psycho Killer (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
      15. Stay Hungry (Live at CBGB’s, New York, New York, 10/10/77) [Previously Unreleased]
    • Blu-ray
      1. Atmos Mix of Talking Heads: 77
      2. 5.1 Mix of Talking Heads: 77
      3. Hi-Resolution Stereo of Talking Heads: 77

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