Everything would be impossible without Talking Heads. That may be an overstatement, but, after absorbing this remarkable box set, I don’t believe that I’ve ever spoken truer words.
The amazing thing, to me at least, is that Talking Heads are as cool today as they were in 1977, when their first album hit the stores. Their music was different from anything anyone had heard, yet there was also a sense of familiarity in those songs and in those melodies. Although David Byrne’s lyrics ranged from strange to stranger to strangest, it was possible to find real meaning within them. (In the interests of full disclosure, I must confess that I used most of “No Compassion” in my high school yearbook quote.) Maybe Chris Frantz wasn’t the world’s greatest drummer; maybe Jerry Harrison didn’t play keyboards like Keith Emerson. But there was something there that made everything gel, from that first album all the way through to the acrimonious end.
Brick is well designed and strikingly handsome. All of Talking Heads’ albums are packaged in a white box embossed with every single song title. Although the liner notes have been expanded, they have not been expanded much; they include some original handwritten lyric sheets and a card with an image based on a song title. There are some essays and remembrances from Talking Heads fans and sidemen, but the packaging is not the reason to shell out $160 for this set.
The reason is the sound. Jerry Harrison, known since the breakup of Talking Heads as one of popular music’s most meticulous producers, has remixed and remastered every album. Each disc is in DualDisc format; one side contains an HDCD remaster, complete with bonus tracks, while the other contains a Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound mix as well as videos and photo clips that will play in your DVD player.
After jamming Talking Heads:’77 into my 100-CD carousel (DualDiscs are thicker than regular CDs and are therefore more likely to cause problems), I sat back to listen. From the first notes of “Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town,” I was shocked. The remastering makes any other version of the album sound downright muddy, and I was able to pick out instrumental figures and flourishes that I had never heard before. Moving on to a later album, to see if the sound quality was vastly improved all around, I discovered that Remain in Light, my favorite Talking Heads album, finally sounded as crisp and clean it was supposed to. Even the track “(Nothing But) Flowers,” from their last album Naked, had been punched up significantly, with Kirsty MacColl’s backing vocals and Johnny Marr’s 12-string guitar farther out in the mix than ever before.
The videos on the DVD side are fun, if incomplete. Last year’s smaller Talking Heads box set, Once in a Lifetime, contained a fourth disc that featured many of their videos. (Of course, compared to this box, that set was woefully incomplete, but Talking Heads completists are willing to shell out for just about anything!) The most interesting videos included on the discs in Brick are what look like home movies of concerts in Berkeley and New York City. These early shows, recorded before Stop Making Sense, show David and Co. learning to tailor their sound and their live act. This is the history of a band before it became big.
(My only complaint about this box is the DualDiscs. As I mentioned above, they are a beast to play in many home systems. However, having to finesse a disc into my CD player is a tiny negative in a sea of positives.)
In the decade or so that Talking Heads were active, their recordings changed the course of rock music, opening new doors for fellow musicians and casual listeners who weren’t sure that anyone could play music that spoke to them in a weird and different way. As a musician myself, it is impossible for me not to acknowledge the influence that Talking Heads have had on me -- not only in terms of how my music sounds, but in terms of how it lives. This Brick is a testament to a band that did things differently and, in doing so, made “different” become acceptable. Thank you, Rhino, for giving their catalog its due and for allowing the music of Talking Heads to live on in all its glory. |