Talking Heads’ second album, More Songs About Buildings and Food, expanded the band’s sonic palette under the watchful gaze of Brian Eno. Their cover of Al Green’s ‘Take Me to the River’ gave them significant commercial exposure, with the band appearing on Saturday Night Live and Dick Clark’s bandstand. However, the band were keen on substance over singles and decided to take a bold leap with their third album, Fear of Music. 1979 was a standout year for music, but nobody could rival the wonderful rhythmic tension of Fear of Music.
After a gruelling touring schedule, work on Fear of Music began in the spring of ’79, rehearsing demo tracks. The band wanted to give more prominence to the disco rhythms that had crept into More Songs About Buildings and Food, but they were unhappy with the initial results. Subsequently, sessions were moved to Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz’s loft, where the band’s earliest rehearsals occurred. After starting recording without a producer, Eno was quickly called in to assist, helping energise the band.
Recording in the loft posed several logistical difficulties, and over two days, cables had to be trailed in through the window as the band nailed some basic tracks. Weymouth and Frantz’s combination had been crucial to the tight rhythms of More Songs About Buildings and Food, but during sessions, Bryne’s idiosyncratic sense of rhythm came to the fore. Confidence grew as the band tirelessly rehearsed and refined the tracks, with Eno handling electronic treatments.
Fear of Music is the sound of reinvention and reinvigoration, the band’s success nudging them to move in a different direction. The result was supreme, combining disco rhythms and neo-noir soundscapes with conventional rock stylings. Not that Fear of Music could ever be described as conventional; it’s precise and mechanical but paradoxically loose and free-flowing, tense and edgy, everything in motion but also stuck. It’s Talking Heads at their best, tight and nervous, undeniably groovy without sounding cheap, with songs that twist and turn without ever sounding overindulgent.
Jerry Harrison allegedly came up with the album’s title, which appropriately encompasses themes of the record and the pressure the band felt. Bryne provided his best lyrical showcase, largely influenced by life on Avenue A in the East Village of Manhattan. Caving into dystopia, Bryne grapples with anxiety, reality, and a sense of decay, with his trademark humour, providing moments of unsettling hilarity. Bryne’s wry ambiguity is countered by the simple, singular titles given to most of the songs, ranging from ‘Mind’ to ‘Cities’ and ‘Electric Guitar’.
The album’s opener, ‘I Zimbra’, is wonderfully out of wack with the rest of the record, acting as a teaser for Remain in Light. An adaption of Dadaist Hugo Ball’s poem Gadji beri bimba, it has a distinctly African flavour, with the guest percussionists and chanted vocal lines. Experimental guitarist Robert Fripp makes a guest appearance, helping give its sharp electric groove, supplemented by Weymouth’s bass, which ducks in and out cleverly. The additional percussion gives it an excellent rhythm, and there’s a fantastic percussive solo as the band provides its boldest offering yet.
Fear of Music has an undeniable groove, with the band’s interplay typically superb. Weymouth and Frantz’s performance is outstanding, their control of rhythm supreme. On ‘Mind’, Weymouth’s bass bounces and wobbles along, while Harrison’s tight riffs provide the tension, and tracks end in a tight electric assault that feels unhinged but controlled. ‘Cities’ is an undisputed highlight, an aggressive disco track with Harrison’s chiming keys, Weymouth’s melodic bass line and Eno’s weird electronic scratches. Again, ‘Cities’ is a masterclass in tension, rattling along at a rapid pace.
‘Life During Wartime’ is a piece of arty, frenetic new wave powered by Frantz’s relentless rhythm, while ‘Memories Can Wait’ has a psychedelic flavour with its warped echo and ominous bass line. ‘Air is similarly eerie despite its feather-light harmonies and Weymouth’s funky bass, Harrison’s keys sounding like they were plucked from a scary 90s video game. ‘Drugs’ treads in similar waters, with its haunting synths, plinking keys, and riffs which just sneak in like an unwanted visitor. ‘Electric Guitar’ is another dystopic number with its treacle-like rhythm and Eno’s subtle, creepy electronic whooshes. ‘Heaven’ is a rare moment of relaxation, with its light, airy melody.
But even the sanctity of heaven isn’t safe from Bryne’s despairing statements as he describes it as a place “Where nothing/Nothing ever happens”. Bryne’s sense of reality seems to be slipping throughout; on ‘Paper’, he sings, “Had a love affair, but it was only on paper”, suggesting it never happened, a sentiment strengthened several lines later when he describes taking a few weeks off. Bryne leans into the anxieties of his narrators, who seem to be constantly caught on the outside of life and love. “I need something to change your mind”, he laments on ‘Mind’. The trappings of the mind can be a disturbing place, but Bryne leans into its potential pleasures on ‘Memories Can’t Wait’: “There’s a party in my mind/And I hope it never stops”.
‘Cities’ is one of the band’s finest singles, serving as a dystopic companion to ‘Big Country’, the closing track of More Songs About Buildings and Food. On ‘Big Country’, Bryne sounded weary, craving the relaxing comforts of New York, but on ‘Cities’, he sounds frantic, desperately searching for a home: “I will find a city, find myself a city to live in”. Name-dropping cities across the US and England, Bryne almost sounds like a deranged travel agent. Paranoia is a theme that permeates Fear of Music, coming to the fore on the closing track, ‘Drugs’, where Bryne’s delivery is tentative and fearful.
Bryne’s paranoia is at its highest in the brilliant ‘Life During Wartime’, as he paints the picture of a post-apocalyptic city: “Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons/Packed up and ready to go”. Bryne yelps his way through, suffering an identity crisis (“I’ve changed my hairstyle so many times now/I don’t know what I look like”), but he sounds oddly stimulated throughout, thriving amidst the chaos, even sounding bored by “The sound of gunfire”.
But things aren’t always serious, and Bryne provides some cutting humour on the satirical ‘Animals’ and ‘Electric Guitar’. On the former, he derides animals for their inability to understand jokes and lack of loyalty, his vocals becoming increasingly demonic, and there’s a superb irony to the repeated closing statement: “They’re making a bad example”. ‘Electric Guitar’ pokes fun at those who became convinced rock music was descended from the devil in the 50s and 60s. Bryne tells the story of an electric guitar brought into a court of law and left to the mercy of a jury, who decides it must be banned (“Never listen to electric guitar”).
Fear of Music encapsulates everything good about Talking Heads, tense and nervy but melodic and groovy, with tight, idiosyncratic rhythms that hook you in. Eno’s electronic dabblings provided another layer to the group’s sound, as their willingness to experiment took them to new heights, with Bryne’s absurd, dystopic lyricism his finest offering yet. The quirky kings of cool, their best was just around the corner.