No Talking Just Head

I love Talking Heads and gave Tom Tom Club five stars on the main list, but although this has its moments where it's pretty good, on the whole it's missing the magic.

I had no idea this was a thing, and what a thing it is! I can see why it didn't hit home, it's not as "nice" as the Talking Heads' or Tom Tom Club's work (they swear!), but the guest stars and heavy riffage bring something else to it. It's what the first Unkle album should have been, more cohesive and less compromised.

I like this submission as a really weird specific time capsule. Holy moly what a demonstration of how to lose a breakup.

At least with the Tom Tom Club album, the Story of it was an experimental side project of a band at their peak—it could get away with being kind of a mess, because it wasn't really out to prove anything like that. This one's both a really weird sour grapes case, and a failed grasp for relevance as the 90s marched on.

I'm rating it mid instead of low, because I think this is a very interesting train wreck

There’s absolutely no reason why I needed to hear this album before I die

Kyllä tästä bändistä jää ilman Byrneä jotain puuttumaan. Don't take my kindness for weakness on aika kauhea kappale. 2/5.

Not good, just happens

I clearly need a bit of Talking to enjoy Head.

Talking Heads is one of my favorite bands of all time, but I try to avoid their personal lives when it comes to their band because it really sours the reputation of all involved. They are certainly not the worst rock stars out there personality wise, but it can be rough. Luckily, their fantastic music and eccentric personalities always shined first and foremost. Not here, though. This album puts their inner turmoil front and center, making it known to the listener that David Byrne is NOT here, and they don't need him. But frankly, after listening to the whole, nearly hour long experience, it is pretty obvious that the group still needs their talker. There are slight bits of funk, but the whole album screams 90s identity crisis, and while some features make the band their own, looking at you Andy, others sound so off here you question how the connection even came to be. The whole album is needlessly angsty, and while there are some great moments (hi again, Andy) there is enough here to definitively say this isn't Talking Heads showing they don't need Byrne, but instead exactly showing why they had him in the first place. Without the context the album is okay, but with it this album is just a spiral of emotions in one mixed bag of a record. 2.5, rounding up to a 3 star.