Two sevens clash
1977 debut sound from the smartest band around, expanded.
By Victoria Segal.
Toys R Us: Talking Heads (from left) Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth, David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Los Angeles, December 1977 – “bright, neat, uptight, curious in every sense.”
Talking Heads
★★★★
Talking Heads: 77
RHINO. CD/LP
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“GET BEHIND IT before it gets past you,” ran the slogan Sire used to promote Talking Heads in 1977, bundling them with Richard Hell And The Voidoids, The Dead Boys and The Saints in a campaign that pushed “new wave rock’n’roll”. It irritated the art-school quartet, who didn’t exactly fit in with the “honest, unpretentious, energy-charged” sounds the label promised. Talking Heads, though, would be the band who cut through. “When people saw them, they realised they weren’t dealing with morons in leather jackets,” said Sire’s Ken Kushnick (somewhat unfairly) in 1979.