Well, as you might gather, I do. Maybe the band's roots are in "unexciting" music, but there's so many slight eyebrow-raising twists that I can't help but like this album a lot. Could any other band take a standard pop song like the opening Uh Oh, Love Comes to Town (with a great bassline) and give it a whole other dimension simply with the attachment of "Uh Oh" to the beginning of the song, or with emotionally ambiguous lyrics as those in the chorus ("here comes a riddle, here comes a clue, if you are really smart, you'll know what to do")? Would a normal album have tweaked guitar interplay and half-sung/half-spoken lyrics like those of New Feeling combined with such a great tweaked melody? Would any other band think to give a song like Tentative Decisions a martial drumming pattern under the "Oh the boys want to talk ..." parts, giving the song a sort of comic majesty to go with traditional opposite-gender angst?

Sheesh, it just goes on. I could live without Happy Day, which is a bit too sappy without being memorable enough, and I guess Who is It? is a somewhat stupid groove (I like it more than I should, though - that instrumental texture is just too addictive), but I find more good than bad in every one of the other songs (except for the fact that trying to unstick them from each other in my mind after the album's done is still a major problem, which is why the rating is as low as it is). No Compassion is notable because it bookends a nonsensical/anthemic (a combination other groups would be hardpressed to achieve, to say the least) main section with a fine shimmery riff topped off with perfect shimmery slide guitars. The Book I Read is notable because it's a great take on the "nervous love song" genre, combining the standard paranoid mutterings with that beautiful "na na na ...." part. Don't Worry About the Government makes lines like "My building has every convenience" as moving and anthemic as hearing God Bless America (and then goes into playful territory with the "loved ones, loved ones ..." chunk), Psycho Killer finds the one and only way to make a piece about a homicidal maniac (with a menacing bass intro, no less) into a post-modern poppy blast ("Psycho killer, q'uest-ce que c'est? fa fa fa fa fa fa ... better run run run run run run away ..."), and the closing Pulled Up combines playful guitars with UP UP UP... screams (that probably inspired Mick Jagger for some of his ramblings in Shattered) to terrific effect.

Of course, there are weaknesses. The biggest problem from a reviewing point of view is that, well, these songs make it very difficult to explain the album without namechecking every song. These songs are cool, neat, demented and catchy (a lot of the time), but even the moments that seem kinda emotional seem as though it's just David Byrne laughing at me. And, of course, there's the fact that I'd forgotten a lot of these cool aspects of the tracks until I just was flipping through them to jog my memory of what the heck is where. But it's good. VERY good.

Fortunately, the album has plenty of strengths to make up for the occasional bursts of dorkitude. The best news of all is that Eno is onboard as producer. This means, as in all of Eno's best work, that the sound is both one that cannot naturally be created "live", and at the same time one that never feels technophilian or artificial. (Note: I just tried to describe this sound without looking at anybody else's reviews as a cheat sheet ... and managed to unintentionally copy almost exactly what George Starostin said, just using different words. Curse this mind meld.) In this case, the main augmentation comes to the guitars - the guitar patterns on the debut may have been clever and somewhat innovative, but they were nonetheless limited by the fact that they were from just two people playing with few overdubs. Here, though, these two-man innovative patterns are combined with goodness knows how many overdubs of themselves, but instead of making the sound bigger a la Phil Spector, Eno keeps the guitar sound relatively contained but makes the sound go nuts within that containment. All sorts of ever-chugging rhythmic insanities occur on this album, making sissy guitar tones seem cool in their own way. In any case, if you're a big fan of the sound of Talking Heads, this will have a good chance at being your favorite Heads album, if only because that sound is just totally omnipresent.

Alas, as great as the sound is, only about half of the songs stand out significantly for me. With Our Love and Found a Job are, to me, the best examples of the Heads' sound here (best as in "most good," not as in "quintessential"). The former, aside from the guitar stylings, also has a GREAT upward-sliding bassline that pops up in some great places (that creates my favorite sound on the album), not to mention that it's neat the way Byrne's ramblings resolve with something as classy as the "chorus" that ends with the title (well, there's also the way he quietly says, "gui-tar!" at 2:28, heh). The latter is just as good, though, with the first few seconds just about defining "Talking Heads" for me, with Dave simulating a snippy conversation between a couple before offering "commentary," all over the usual great basslines and guitar what-not's. And don't forget those Caribbean vibes over the guitars in the last half!

The other notable tracks bookend the album (one at the beginning, two at the end). The opening Thank You For Sending Me an Angel really does (as suggested by some others) sound like a cross between the rest of the album and the Beatles song Get Back, with David proclaiming his love by rambling such amorous nuggets as "With a little practice, you can walk like, talk just like me...". The band's cover of Al Green's Take Me to the River, the album's penultimate track, is friggin' great, if only for the novelty value of finding out what a regular, solid soul groove sounds like when filtered through coked-out art school dweebs. On the other hand, what comes after isn't as good; the last track, the countryish The Big Country, is amusing because of David's almost self-parodic elitism, but the actual music isn't much as far as quality country goes.

As for the remaining tracks, um ... The Good Thing is alright, complaints about dweebishness aside, The Girls Want to be with the Girls is a good lesbian anthem (I really like that goofy organ that pops up under the guitars from time to time), and ... the other tracks are good. When I remember at all how they go, I'll be sure to let you know! Seriously, though, the sound is great, but the songs have a tendency to blend together here even more than on the debut. Regardless, I like the album way more than not, and definitely recommend it to anybody who enjoys the next two efforts.

The bulk of the album consists of tracks with one-word titles, each of which features Byrne expounding on that particular object from the point of view of somebody who, at the least, is somewhat wary of it, and at most is completely stark raving insane about it. Sometimes it's not so obvious that the song itself reflects a fear of the object - Mind, for instance, is just David trying to figure out how to change the mind of the person he's singing to regarding something or other, and doesn't explicitly fit into the eyebrow twitching of much of the rest of the album. On the other hand, the way the song moves from its cheery opening musical theme to that theme complimented by some surprisingly strident growling guitars and weird effects on Byrne's voice as he sings "miiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnd" seem to show somebody a little unstable in the head, so that kinda works. Ah well, the song is perfectly lovely whether it more or less fits the album's concept or not.

After that, though, things start to get strange - come on, when was the last time you ever heard a paranoid, catchy, rambling moody track about paper of all things? What David is trying to say exactly in this track is totally beyond me, whether he sees how light passes through paper as an analogy for his relationships with other people or whatever, but it doesn't really matter - the guitars on this track are simply glorious, taking the More Songs revolution and pushing it one step further towards interesting complexity. Just when you think the "fear of ___" concept isn't really holding muster that well, though, we come to the glorious Cities. All sorts of crazy complaints can be found here, from obvious paranoid lunatic digs like "It's dark, dark in the daytime. The people sleep, sleep in the daytime if they want to! If they want to!" to more sarcastic ones like "Look over there!... A dry ice factory! A good place to get some thinking done," all over the band's paranoid rhythmic mastery over Harrison's moody electric piano. And sheesh, that chorus, those one liners ("Did I forget to mention, forget to mention Memphis? Home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks!"), all found in one track...

I'm not sure it necessarily gets better from this point on out, but it's definitely on the same level at worst (this album is VERY consistent). Life During Wartime doesn't fit the one-word pattern, obviously, but David's paranoia is in full display nonetheless - lines like, "I changed my hairstyle so many times now I don't know what I look like!" are the norm, and his laments about not being able to lead a "normal" life during this time are contrasted disturbingly well by one of the most perfect dancable grooves I've ever heard in my life. Memories Can't Wait is even more disturbing, though, if only because David's paranoia is made even more intense by the menacing, echoey effects placed on the underpinning instrumental tracks and, er, Eno-tronics. Plus, there's just something so cool to me about the way David sings the "I'm sleeping, I'm flat on my BACK" line, with the back line sung with so much emphasis that it seems like his back will be pinned to the ground for the rest of eternity.

Just when it seems the band is getting into an unescapable gloomy rut, though, they come back with some paranoid tracks of a more mellow nature. David has suddenly decided he has something against Air, of all things, but the band deals with it in such a way so that it seems like he's dealing more with a gentle breeze than an angry hurricance - the "air...air" backing vocals and the chorus should make it clear that this is meant to be pretty more than anything else. Who knows, maybe he's just afraid of air not protecting him from UV like it's supposed to ... Anyway, Heaven is up next, and it's glorious, a terrific parody (in the opinion of my brother and I) of David Bowie's plastic soul ballads from earlier in the decade. The great thing about it is that it captures so perfectly one of the downsides of most Christian religious teachings - they make heaven seem so boring!!! Sure, it's a nice place and all, but who really wants it when "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens"? The major-league feeling of prozac in the music helps too - I can just see David and everybody around him with big, empty smiles on their faces.

The absolute pinnacle for me, though, is Animals. Yes, it's largely the "novelty" song of the album, so most reviewers have too much dignity to call it their favorite of the album. Screw dignity! Nobody needs dignity when David is bellowing in an over-over-over the top voice about how "Animals think ... they UNDERSTAND! To trust in them, a BIG MISTAKE! ANIMALS WANT TO CHANGE MY LIFE - I WILL IGNORE ANIMALS' ADVICE!" Or when he bellows "I know the animals ... ARE LAUGHING AT US!! THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW ... WHAT A JOKE IS!" Or especially when he enters that GLORIOUS Eno-processed vocal groove at the end, where he starts growling non-stop such brilliant lines as "You know animals are hairy? They're living on nuts and berries!" Come on, people, recognize the greatest philosophical treatise in the history of mankind when you see it! "ANIMALS THINK ... THEY'RE PRETTY SMART ... SHIT ON THE GROUND ... SEE IN THE DARK!"

The last two tracks are a slight letdown from the rest of the album, but not too badly. The biggest problem with Electric Guitar, aside from dragging a bit, is that it's extremely difficult to figure out not just what David's problem is, but also whether he's pro-guitar or anti-guitar in the song. Still, the music is pretty cool, even if the vocals are too disturbing for my tastes. One could also complain about the closing Drugs, if only because it's the longest track on the album and extremely lethargic at the same time. On the other hand, I love that atmosphere, as parts like the "And all I see is little DOTSDOTSDOTSDOTSDOTSDOTS" line and the shaking backing guitar lines create a "drugged out of my mind" mood as well as, I dunno, the Stones' Sister Morphine. Good ole Eno.

Ooooh, and don't forget the album opener, even though it may as well belong to a different album. I Zimbra is largely the foundation of the following Remain in Light, as it's their first excursion into World Beat music, as well as a foundation for King Crimson's Discipline (that's not surprising, though - guess who plays that bizarre guitar part that makes the song into a classic? Yup, Robert Fripp!). Nonsense group vocals, "ethnic" guitar rhythms and drumming polyrhythms all combine here into a bizarre dose of butt-shakitude. And don't forget Tina Weymouth's bass, where she proves just how much can be done to set a groove while playing an extremely small number of notes.

So there's your album. Lots of people have trouble getting in this one, largely because it's so dark and somber and moody compared with the albums bookending it, but as somebody who loved this album on first listen, I must insist that this is worth further efforts. It just requires you, the listener, to think outside the regular adjectives usually ascribed to the band ("quirky," "ethnic," "bouncy" etc).

But blast it, just because I don't instinctively love something doesn't mean I can't eventually come to enjoy and respect the heck out of it. This is a sonic masterpiece, with Eno and guest-guitarist Adrian Belew (that's right, later of King Crimson) combining forces with the band to make a bunch of hypnotic grooves that prove that any sonic texture is possible if you can only imagine it. A review of the album upon its release made a statement to the effect that this album completely obliterated the boundary between "black" music and "white" music, and I have to say I largely agree with this. Remain in Light is indeed a massive shake-your-booty album (if you have some dancing creativity, that is), albeit moreso on side one than two, yet the amount of stuff happening on top of that dancable foundation would make any art-rock band proud.

I have to say, though, that it isn't really so much the Heads themselves that make this album so great for me. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're plenty great here - the guitar interplay in parts of this album is better than ever, the massive work on the part of the rhythm section cannot possibly be overrated, and David's omnipresent ramblings are just as spacey as ever (less coherent than on Music, though, which kinda makes me sad in some ways). On the other hand, though, what the band members themselves do on this album is just, well, them doing what they proved they could do on the first three albums. They may be doing it faster and better than before, yes, but it's still ultimately the same ole same ole high quality.

If you ask me where the distinguishing greatness of this album lies, it ultimately comes down to four capitalized words: Brian Eno, Adrian Belew. I don't really care how talented the band members were; many of the sounds and rhythms, with such jagged precision as they have, could not possibly exist in a "live" setup or even in the hands of most producers. Of course, Eno's contributions are not just in producing - he's given a songwriting credit along with the band on all of the tracks, and his backing vocals are extremely prominent in more than a few places.

Ah man, and then there's Belew. That ultra-weird video-game morse-code solo thing in Born Under Punches? Belew! Those hellish, spacey guitar noises that pop up in Crosseyed and Painless? Belew! Those solos with that MASSIVE tone in The Great Curve? Belew! These are my favorite moments on the album! No wonder Fripp wanted Belew in the 80's King Crimson so badly!

Anyway, I feel bad that I've gotten this far into the review without describing in much detail the actual songs, but blast it, these aren't easy songs to describe - these are anthemic grooves!! Well, ok, there's one place where the repetitive groove kinda forms into a "normal" song, on the wonderful Once in a Lifetime. Dave has one of his best rants, Eno and the band do a great job with the harmonies (I love love Eno's voice on this), it has all of these great "watery" effects to go with the watery lyrical content ... Man, this is great, even if I listened to this track with an extremely perplexed look the first time I heard it.

As you can see, I'm also extremely fond of The Great Curve, not in the least because of Belew's aforementioned solos. However, this is only the final great part of an otherwise brilliant groove, one that can't help but get your foot tapping like mad for six+ minutes while backing vocals interact incredibly with the lead vocals with the guitars with the bass with the drums with the whatever. Oh man, this is beyond brilliant as far as "dance pop" goes - if your whole body isn't trying to move from the "World moves on a woman's hips" part onward, you're even more hopelessly honkified than I am.

The first two songs of the first side are also brilliant, but frankly I'm at a loss to describe them very well. Grooves that do everything imaginable based on those grooves in the time alotted them? That works, I guess. Anyway, the second side is the mellow side of the band on display, and while it's much more difficult to enjoy the tracks here than the other ones on first listen, they've grown on me plenty. Not that there's much to describe with them, unless I go into a majorly dissective mode with them. Houses in Motion is Byrne talking and singing over a hypnotic, proto-trance groove (with Byrne and Eno singing in tandem from time to time), Seen but not Seen is Byrne talking over a better, more Eno-synth-heavy groove, Listening Wind is a WONDERFUL mellow groove (with some GREAT atmospheric synths and that incredibly hypnotic "wind in my heart ..." chorus), and The Overload is ... wow, not really a groove. It's just a dark and scary atmosphere piece. It's creepier than Drugs, if that helps at all.

As you can probably tell from the rather aborted description of the songs here, the biggest problem for me is that I can't really relate to this music, as cool as I think it sounds. If you're one of those consumers and/or makers of that beep-beep music the kids are calling electronica, though, this will probably be your Bible (not that this album is electronica per se, as the raw elements were played by human hands, but these elements are very very heavily manipulated). As for me, it's just a great album, and one that I like even more than I thought, but one that doesn't grab me quite like Fear of Music does. Ah well, that's my problem, I suppose.

But dagnabbit, just because other people do something doesn't mean they're wrong. This album, originally released in 1982 as a double-live album, and finally issued on CD in 2004 as a 2-disc package nearly twice as long as the original, is so flabbergastingly awesome that it's literally altered the way I view the band. Thanks to this album, I finally feel like I actually get what the band was trying to do, and furthermore I feel like I can enjoy the band as more than just an "interesting for interesting's sake" group centered around a quirky sonic texture. Hardcore fans of the band's studio efforts may scoff at the fact that it took a live album for me to accomplish this, and they may well be right; however, I would contend that if you have any ear whatsoever for live albums, you'll be able to appreciate what it is about this album that makes that so.

Name is slightly unusual for a live album in that, instead of attempting to give the listener an idea of what a "single representative concert" from the band sounded like, the album functions as an "evolutionary retrospective" of the band's development through the Remain in Light tour. The second disc is actually entirely devoted to that tour, whereas the first disc traces the band's journey from its original minimalistic '77 roots, through the dense guitar interplay and paranoia of '78 and '79. I'll tell you one thing about the '77 performances, taken from a live-in-the-studio recording: there is NO WAY I would have initially considered the songs from that album boring if they had been performed like this. There's just so much power and energy, and Byrne (already) sounds so much more deranged than on the studio album, that by the second listen I was totally floored. Sure, there's a lot to be owed to the remastering efforts, and I'm betting that even the band's club shows didn't sound quite like this, but still, what a listen.

Up next is the '78 Buildings and Food period, where my feelings of "huh, what a neat sound, if only I could remember more of the songs" turns into "wow, these are great songs!" I mean, yeah, I always thought Found a Job ruled, but replacing the extended Carribbean vibes coda with an extended coda of one guitar chugging away and the other playing the melody of the original coda again and again and again in such a brazen, audience-be-damned manner was just a stroke of genius. And sheesh, how did Girls Want to be with the Girls and (especially) I'm Not in Love become so intensely enjoyable? How did Big Country stop sucking, and how did Drugs become so freaking pleasant in addition to retaining a measure of creepiness? I know of some who want to put the blame solely with Eno for causing the studio versions of these tracks to have so much less power than these live performances, and maybe they'd have a point, but that would ignore the big step up in the pre-Eno '77 tracks. Let's just attribute it to Talking Heads being a great live band, mmkay?

Come '79, the band's live performances start to (naturally) take on the mood of Fear, even in tracks that had been penned earlier (both Artists Only and Stay Hungry, the latter of which is given a neat dark keyboard passage in the middle, are done in somewhat disturbing ways). Mind, Air and Heaven are all easily the equals of their studio versions (and in some ways superior; yay for energy and extra atmosphere), and Memories Can't Wait is very arguably superior, if only because of the extra echo on David's voice, and the weird mannerisms he takes on when singing.

So that's disc 1. Disc 2 sees the band expanding greatly, bringing in six extra musicians to make the sound fuller and give the group even a fighting chance of replicating the world-beat craziness of Remain in Light. The really good news out of all this is that Adrian Belew is here and in top form, contributing his bizarrely diverse sonic pallette in its full splendor, but it's just as nice to have everybody else around (especially Bernie Worrell on clavinet). Now, I know that some people would probably shrug their shoulders at the fact that the best the band can pull off is mimicing the studio versions, and that due to the lack of a bazillion studio overdubs they can't even pull that off completely. In other words, one might ask, what's the point of this disc? Well, I'll tell you; it's that listening to this ensemble working its collective tail off to make these songs work causes me to respect and even to enjoy these songs (I'm speaking primarily of the Light material, you see) more than I did as meticulous studio creations. In particular, Houses in Motion and Born Under Punches are nearly revelatory, and I say that as somebody who enjoyed these songs before and now loves them. Punches gets an interesting deconstruction, letting the main bassline occupy the forefront of the song in the introduction and in large part through the rest, and Motion is so hypnotic here it drives me nuts (in a good way). Throw in great performances of (among other things) Warning Sign, Cities, I Zimbra, Drugs (cheerful like the one on the first disc, but also keeping the creepy dub effects of the studio version, making this the definitive version), Animals (which is totally transformed in the coda, and while I don't love this version more than the original, I definitely have an affinity for the laid-back ending here), Life During Wartime and Take Me to the River (which I enjoy a lot more than the Stop Making Sense version), and you have an absolutely necessary listen as far as I'm concerned.

In the end, then, this is so necessary, not only for Heads fans, but also for any pop music fan in general, that the fact that we had to wait so long for a CD issue of this seems in retrospect like an unpardonable crime by the music industry. Even if you don't have an interest in Talking Heads, you should have this; with 33 tracks, representing 28 tracks from the band's first four albums (and two non-album tracks), this really does satisfy the cliche of "Only Talking Heads Album You Need." Pick it up asap if you have any taste whatsoever.

Still, as far as solid, percussion-heavy dance songs go, this album isn't really bad. After all, David is still around to throw out his bizarre vocals and lyrics, the guitars are still doing their funky thing, there's some well-placed synth effects, and all in all this is hardly a mindless effort. The opening Burning Down the House is the best of these, and while I don't totally understand why it's their most popular song (just because it's dancable and has largely nonsensical lyrics about burning a house down? Man, I've gotta stop giving people as much credit as I do ...), it nevertheless is as great as many give it credit for. Of course, it would be nice if it didn't sound like David was singing from another room, but again, the whole lack of Eno thing has been covered already.

The other eight tracks, for me, are largely interchangable. The closing This Must be the Place is notable for having everybody in the band play the wrong instrument, which makes it sound rather cute and less like the thumpy monotony of the rest. I mean, it's a decent enough thumping monotony, and I guess Girlfriend is Better is a standout from everything else thanks to some REALLY neat (albeit kinda dated) synth and bass effects, but I can't remember what's what even after as many listens as I've given this. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that these songs are basically enjoyable when on (mainly because of the whole booty-shaking factor), this might get a lower rating - as is, it's a good album for dancing to, I guess, but that's definitely not the only thing I look for from this band.

And, in addition to the "big" sound of the majority of the album (thanks to backing singers and extra musicians, including P-funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell), we get the treat of hearing the beginning relatively stripped down. Psycho Killer kicks off with just David on acoustic guitar and using a cassette player to provide the backing beat (and manages to rule fiercely), Heaven is David's acoustic and Tina's bass (making the track into both a plastic soul satire and a "majestic" ballad), and Thank You For Sending Me an Angel brings in the drums, before the whole band kicks into Found a Job. From that point on, it's basically just one great bizarre poppy butt-shaking groove after another, which isn't particularly revelatory for a TH live album (which is basically the only reason it doesn't get a higher grade) but is enjoyable as can be. Of course, it does have a great version of a previously unreleased track, entitled What a Day That Was, so I guess that sorta counts as a revelation.

All in all, there aren't that many surprises (though there are a few) or moments that make me say "I can't live without this album," but it is a perfectly effective compilation of everything Talking Heads had achieved to that point. I'm betting, though, that my opinion of this would be even higher if I'd seen the movie ...

PS: I finally saw the movie, it rules. But you probably already knew that.

So anyway, what happened, basically, is that Talking Heads became hugely popular, thanks to Tongues and Sense, and they liked being megastars (no crime, in my opinion). So in order to sustain this fame, they went back to what they had originally done so well - "normal" pop music with a bunch of strange eccentricities. Of course, since it was now 1985, it was only natural that the songs created in such a venture would be based in 80's pop (whereas '77 was more-or-less rooted in 70's and earlier traditions), and that the sound would be be shiny, clear and happy, as opposed to the slight roughness of '77 (also, it basically ditches the guitar interplay that had made them so famous, but whatever). They could no longer write as underground weirdos, but instead as slightly clever poppy stars.

And they did it! Somehow, Byrne learned how to write "normal," resonant songs without dumbing down his artistic vision, and the band members were able to still sound interesting instrumentally despite ditching their trademark styles. Now, is it a perfect metamorphosis into pop genius? No, it's not - truth be told, as much as I enjoy these songs and love at least a couple of aspects in each track, I have a good deal of trouble remembering the verse melodies of most of the tracks even after ten listens or so, and that's a bit of a problem when dealing with such a poppy album. But man, I have the same problem with the debut, and does it deserve any less than a B? No, it doesn't, and neither does this.

It's really interesting to listen to this album, as it's gotta be one of the most consistently "very good" albums I've heard in a good while. It's so consistent, in fact, that I have an extremely difficult time deciding what my favorite is - I slightly lean towards the opening And She Was, with pretty, clear guitars underpinning a nice verse melody that moves into a GREAT chorus (with good singing all throughout), but even then I'm not sure if that's just because it comes first. I mean, it's weird for me when I go through an album and at each track think, "Wow, this may be the best thing on here," but then forget a good deal about what I liked about that track while listening to the next one. Maybe that's also why I kinda lean towards the closing Road to Nowhere - there's no track afterwards to overwrite it in my memory. Of course, the warm gospelish vocals that open the track and pop up repeatedly, and the martial rhythms (first time we've had these since the debut, of course) over which David sings a pleasant melody augmented by accordion (yup!) may also have a good deal to do with liking it as well ...

Sheesh, I like something a lot about everything on this album. I still don't remember how most of the main melody of Televsion Man goes, but how can I possibly resist a song that has such a great groove in place from the rhythm section in the first parts, then goes into that GREAT "na na na na na na" vocal call-and-response over that technically 'simple' but all-the-more-interesting-for-it drum groove? I don't know how most of Give Me Back My Name goes (except of course the chorus), but MAN I love that instrumental texture, especially that effect by Tina slowly sliding down her bass at the right times during the verses. I may find Creatures of Love a little too simple or even dumb in my gut, but how can I resist that laid-back countryish guitar playing and David's warm singing? I can go on and on like this about every song - this may be one of the least "residually memorable" straight-up pop albums I've heard in forever when it comes to the verses, but these choruses and twists and whatever make me care about that waaaaaay less than I could otherwise.

In short, this is about as solid of a pop album as one could find from the mid-80's. It struggles in some of the "regular" aspects of pop music, but succeeds marvelously in others, and if you don't find yourself smiling and singing happily along during its 38-minute runtime, then we're simply speaking two different musical languages.

This isn't the best idea David ever had, which he himself admits. There are good songs on here, but way too many of the songs on here sound like David wrote them in about ten minutes and said, "Well, these must be fine anyway, because I am an art-ist! Besides, people won't mind, they all like dippy pop music." I mean, after the great hard-rock opener, Love for Sale, the next three tracks just make me lament the lost moments of my life. Well, ok, Puzzlin' Evidence has a decent up-tempo organ rock groove in place, but where in the hell does David get off thinking this deserves to go five and a half minutes? And the next two are just dumb - Hey Now is a sorta gospel-caribbean cross that goes absolutely nowhere for 3:42 that seems like eternity, and Papa Legba is just a mockery of all of the band's previous 'world beat' excursions. Not to mention that it's almost six minutes long, which doesn't improve my attitude any.

The second half is pretty good, though. Wild Wild Life has a very nice Little Creatures-level chorus, and it's certainly pleasant throughout just like the songs from there. The same goes for Radio Head - a little cheezier than the average LC track, but another enjoyable chorus doesn't hurt. The next two tracks, which each have a heavy country influence, are also quite lovely - Dream Operator is actually pretty in a 'regular' way, and People Like Us, for its sappiness, does have another nice chorus. And, well, the closing City of Dreams has a nice melody and atmosphere, if a little too much self-importance.

So basically, the album is ok, but it's not more than that. I mean, I don't have anything against simple songs, but they need to either be memorable or interestingly resonant or at least consistently have an interesting atmosphere. This doesn't consistently have any of those - they appear at times, sure, but for the most part the album is David doing songs in areas he's not largely familiar with without bothering to do much to ensure the listener has a reason to listen to them instead of, well, simple songs that do have those traits.

You know, for all of the ways this album sounds so much more "worked on" than True Stories, it still doesn't sound to me like David spent too much time on the songwriting. He and producer Steve Lillywhite worked a ton on the sound and the arrangements, sure, but on the actual songs? It's like David honestly believed that a well-done world beat texture and fairly pretentious, "artsy" lyrics were enough to make this into a masterpiece, without bothering to check (or care) if catchiness, resonance or atmosphere had managed to work their way into the album. Oh sure, Nothing But Flowers is fairly resonant, despite some of the goofiest lyrics I've ever heard David sing with such 'majesty' (sure, the lyrics are straightforward, but hearing him sing those lines about the fast food places he misses just make me laugh every time); about a city person who wakes up and finds that nature has taken over his city, it at least has a pleasant atmosphere and a bunch of moving guitar parts near the end, so that puts it ahead of most of the rest.

But the rest? I kinda like Blind and Mr. Jones when they're on, but that's likely because they're the first two tracks. I don't really hate anything on the album in particular, but I'll be the uncle of the album cover's monkey if I've been able to find many reasons to get myself to come back to any other parts of the album again and again. Facts of Life stands out because its arrangement is different, but while it has some novelty value, the proto-industrial synth/percussion groove it's based on gets on my nerves fairly quickly. Mommy, Daddy, You and I has some moments of promise, but sheesh, it just devolves into the same ole rhythmic blah blah blah (with some amusing Byrne posturing, I'll admit). And, ok, the ending tracks have some extra zing to them, for some reason that eludes me even as I listen to them again. Lessee ... oh, ok, the closing Cool Water at least has a great dark echoey guitar line as its main theme, before getting overrun with more beats, before other instruments help it keep the darkness fresh all to the end.

So you see my problem. This album is just too dull and too samey for too long (that's the other thing - most of these tracks are very long by Heads standards) for me to give it too good of a rating. I like irregular rhythms and 'ethnic' arrangements just fine, but unless they are very interesting, they will not make me automatically like an album - the album must have strengths in other areas, and Naked, for me, comes up short in that department.

PS: A non-album track from that time, Lifetime Piling Up, is really good - it would be the best track on here if only it were actually on here.

PPS: Talking Heads broke up officially a couple of years after this album. Ah well - good band, good legacy.