Albums that Changed Music: Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Reflecting on the lyrics to the Talking Heads iconic track “Once in a Lifetime,” David Byrne told NPR, “We’re largely unconscious. You know, we operate half awake or on autopilot and end up, whatever, with a house and family and job and everything else. We haven’t really stopped to ask ourselves, ‘How did I get here?”. The introspection of Byrne’s famous lyrics serve as an invitation to understanding the sonic roots of the Talking Heads’ fourth album Remain in Light. Fusing punk, rock, funk, Afrobeat and nascent hip-hop into their own language of New Wave music, the album exploded popular music’s sonic consciousness with a complex array of sounds and rhythms, and became one of the most influential albums of the decade.

The Talking Heads formed In 1975 when Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, three art students from the Rhode Island School of Design, were living together in a communal loft in New York. The trio began playing at the famed CBGB club in 1977, opening for the Ramones for their first gig. Soon after, they brought in Jerry Harrison on keyboards. Their first album, Talking Heads: 77, contained the now legendary hit “Psycho Killer” which established the band as a leading voice in the emerging New Wave scene in New York.

Their next two albums were created in partnership with producer Brian Eno, a collaboration which suited the artistic and intellectual sensibilities of all involved. “You know what he reminded us of?” Weymouth told Search and Destroy in 1978, “A young Jesuit monk.” Similarly enthralled, Eno described the band’s music as “the product of some very active brains…constructing music in a kind of conceptual way.” However, by the end of the decade, and despite two artistically fruitful collaborations with Eno, the band still found itself at a bit of a crossroads. Eno and Byrne were busy working on a new experimental project together, and Harrison was producing an album for soul singer Nona Hendryx. In response, Frantz and Weymouth, who had married in 1977, decided to take a trip to the Bahamas to consider their place with the group. By this point, Byrne had become the group’s de facto leader – a dynamic which did not appeal to his old art-school classmates.

While in the Bahamas, Frantz and Weymouth spent time playing music with reggae rhythm musicians Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, and exploring the cultural life of the region. Soon after, the pair purchased an apartment above Compass Point Studios in Nassau, where the Talking Heads would reconvene to create Remain in Light.

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[Producelikeapro]

What are some other albums you would like us to cover in this series?

[WTSKY]

I heard Born Under Punches for the first time maybe 8 months ago and it blew me away. I literally sat there and listened to it on repeat for maybe 30 minutes. It could come out today and still be considered new and fresh!

[ganazby]

Adrian Belew’s solos on The Great Curve are sensational. His skilful whammy bar manipulations are right up there with Jeff Beck’s. Fantastic album.

[leebatt]

This album is Tinas finest work. So many great bass lines and sounds. So very good.

[thekeywitness]

I've been listening to this album since it came out and it still sounds futuristic to me. At times it sounds totally electronic, yet it was created with mostly conventional instruments. Listen to Adrian Belew's guitar on "Born Under Punches" -- it sounds like a dial-up modem from the '90s.

[voiceover]

One of the best albums of all time, not a single weak song on it.

[bencrowe]

Even 43 years after its release it’s still a classic. It’s sounds so different but in the greatest way. It doesn’t sound old or antiquated, it’s beautiful

[marin]

The Talking Heads are by far my favorite band of the 80's. Their music is still very relevant today.

[Armakk]

Having listened to this album for over 35 years, I still find it amazing how little singing David Byrne did on it. A chorus here, a coda there, but essentially it's like a spoken word record set to the most delicious music ever.

[ZigbertD]

A truly landmark album, one of my all time favorites, not just because of the stunningly great music, but because of what it did for me at a particular point in my life. I was fifteen when this album was released and my home life was pretty awful, full of familial dysfunction and trauma and violence. Listening to music and practicing guitar were really my only refuges - well, besides drugs but that’s a whole other story. So late one night, when I was wishing I could just disappear so I wouldn’t have to hear what was happening in the other room, I turned on the radio. I listened to a few songs, and then a song came on that was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. It was so different and downright alien to my ear that I really didn’t know what to think of it. But I was fascinated, and the more I listened and tried to grasp what I was hearing the more my expectations of what music sounded like were confounded. When it was over, I wasn’t even exactly sure if I liked it or not, it’s strangeness defied my attempts to form a judgment about it. But it was riveting and mysterious and strangely exhilarating, and most of all it made me forget all about being scared shitless about the shouting and crying and slamming doors and sounds of breaking glass coming from the rest of the house.

Thing is, that night I never learned who or what I’d heard. I fell asleep eventually after waiting breathlessly for the DJ to tell me what it was. But he never did. Every time I listened to the radio for a while after that I kept hoping to hear it again but I never did. I started to wonder if I’d just dreamed it, but the mystery of it remained compelling. It was three year later, during my first year of college, having moved away from home pretty much for good, that I was at a party (under the influence of LSD as it happened) when someone put on “Remain in Light” and two songs in I finally learned that it was “Crosseyed and Painless”. THAT’S IT! THAT’S IT! I remember shouting this, to the bemusement of the other party guests. It was a moment of epiphany and validation. I’d found it, it was real. It wasn’t a dream, it really happened. It’s kind of hard to express, and it might not make much sense, but if you’ve ever had a time when music really saved you, you probably know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, superb album in every way.

[BobJones-dqmx]

"Remain in the Light" is a never ending classic. Its innovations are sky high. Very little competition!

[stratjed]

YES ! Has anybody seen Tina Weymoth play live its like watching a yogi she can dance in 4/4 play in 7/8 and sing in 3/4 all at once truly magical. And when I say dance that is an understatement ! She would run in place while playing in time !

[hatusage]

Adrian was a perfect fit for them at the time. His solo on "The Great Curve" is exceptional .

[alexisc]

My parents had this album, I was six when it came out. The cover art fascinated me from the jump. This music changed my life.

[johnchedsey]

Once in a Lifetime transcends pop, rock or other labels. It's simply one of the greatest pieces of music ever made. And the lyrics are nearly as quotable as Airplane! the movie.

[josedacunhafilho]

Can't help but think Born Under Punches is an Eno song in spirit and energy; it sounds so much like a natural evolution of Third Uncle, which makes me wonder how many "Eno" songs are hidden in Talking Heads albums, or Devo, U2, Coldplay. And now there are bands like The 1975 producing great pop songs clearly influenced by the sound of B.E. I am convinced Eno is the most important figure in pop music history, not to mention experimental music, all the way back from Roxy Music, King Crimson, Bowie, the man is King Midas and he has no apparent ego to get in the way of his natural talent and creative force.

[randallbaker]

I remember tape recording the album off the radio when it first came out. I would listen to it for hours, just flipping the tape over and over again when it got to the end. I would never get tired of it.

[bobdobalina]

What a way to kick off the eighties, with one of the greatest albums ever made. This was oddly enough the first album I ever bought at wax tracks record store in chicago. I still have it, now framed on my wall As a historic document

[Soulventing]

This album is fresh every time you hear it. It has many layers of sound, you notice different things every listen.
Masterpiece!!!!

[nettwench]

Fear of Music and Remain in Light are my two favorite albums. I had them on vinyl when the came out and they got played a LOT.