435. Talking Heads - Fear Of Music (1979)
















Track Listing

1. I Zimbra
2. Mind
3. Paper
4. Cities
5. Life During Wartime
6. Memories Can't Wait
7. Air
8. Heaven
9. Animals
10. Electric Guitar
11. Drugs


Review

I know I am probably a philistine, but no album of the Talking Heads on the list has yet lived up to the promise shown in 77. Even with my beloved Eno on production this just isn't really as good as it should be, I wasn't really that impressed.

Of course it is hard, if not impossible to say that a Talking Heads album is bad, but one can be underwhelmed and that is the primary feeling that I get from this album, I am underwhelmed. It is still better than 90% of the music out there, I can't take that away from it and frankly it does deserve its place on the list.

It just does not have the chaotic experimentalism of 77, the faults are the same I pointed at in More Songs About Buildings and Food, only more so.

So now I've been disappointed by two Talking Heads albums after falling in love with 77, there is still an opportunity for them to redeem themselves with Remain In Light in not the very distant future. So we'll wait and see.


Track Highlights

1. Animals
2. I Zimbra
3. Electric Guitar
4. Cities


Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The song "I Zimbra" was adapted from the poem "Gadji beri bimba" by Dadaist poet Hugo Ball. Its polyrhythms presaged the direction the band would take on its next album, Remain in Light.

Fascinating Youtube lipsynch of Animals... because he didn't get locked in lockers enough at school: