SPEAKING IN TONGUES
SPEAKING IN TONGUES TALKING HEADS
NEW YORK’S ART-ROCK PIONEERS FINALLY COMPLETE THEIR TRANSITION TO PURE FUNK, AND REACH COMMERCIAL PEAKS WITH ONE OF THEIR MOST EXPANSIVE, FULLY-REALISED AND DANCEABLE RECORDS
FELIX ROWE
David Byrne told Wired in 2022 that he doesn’t know the whereabouts of his famous outsize suit: “It might be at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland, or it might be in storage somewhere”
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“THERE’S ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING ENIGMATIC, ALOOF AND IMPENETRABLE ABOUT BYRNE THAT’S KEY TO HIS APPEAL. WHATEVER THAT SOMETHING IS, IT’S PARTICULARLY PREVALENT ON SPEAKING IN TONGUES”
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Fans of Scooby Doo might recall that classic episode when a fiendishly demonic rock group send all the town’s citizens into a zombie-like, hypnotic trance – all through the power of their incessantly funky grooves. As the music pumps out of the PA, the crowd’s eyes gloss over, spinning like kaleidoscopes, their toes tapping uncontrollably. Meanwhile, the bandleader cackles maniacally as the hostage audience are left with no option but to strut their funky stuff.
Listening to Speaking In Tongues, Talking Heads’ insanely funky fifth studio album, evokes the same kind of response. Willing or not, its nagging, syncopated grooves are engineered to pull your legs onto the dancefloor by some insurmountable, invisible force, like a moth to the flame. Likewise, frontman David Byrne brings to mind that elusive, shamanic character putting the audience under his devilish spell.
There’s always been something enigmatic, aloof and impenetrable about Byrne that’s key to his appeal. Whatever that something is, it’s particularly prevalent on Speaking In Tongues, an album that’s oblique and surreal, even by Byrne’s standards. Trying to get the measure of him is like looking at one of those Picasso paintings that portrays the subject from multiple perspectives at once. Even when facing him head on, all is never quite as it seems.
The album’s title references Byrne’s spontaneous lyric-writing process, ad-libbing gobbledegook in real-time to fit the rhythm and meter of the music. It’s an extension of the cut-up, word-collage technique. Yet in Byrne’s hands, it’s more akin to a religious exorcism – erratic and compulsive utterings spurted out involuntarily, like the stuttering dance moves that accompany them. Byrne assumes the role of eccentric preacher, delivering his surreal prose like the Sunday sermon, damning the congregation to eternal hellfire.
Talking Heads are, of course, the consummate dance rock band. Having pioneered the crossover from jagged art punk to disco, Speaking In Tongues is the apex of trajectory, finding them at their most groove-oriented and danceable. Byrne’s theatrics may hog the limelight, but his bandmates – Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison and Chris Frantz – prove equally dextrous. The playing is exquisite, with respect due to Weymouth’s seriously funky basslines, locking in with husband Frantz, on drums. By now, the core quartet had been bolstered by an array of sessioners, amassed over the preceding years, whose presence adds authentic weight to the expanded sound. Among them, Sly & Robbie cohort Wally Badarou and Parliament-Funkadelic sideman, Bernie Worrell, bring space age synthesizers, while Alex Weir of The Brothers Johnson fame provides suitably slinky guitars. The album spawned the band’s biggest selling single in opener Burning Down The House. It’s Talking Heads at their most immediate and accessible without blunting any of their sharp edges.