Talking Heads
Fear Of Music vinyl LP vinyl

Fear of Music, the third album by Talking Heads, begins at maximum velocity and minimum warmth. Congas, funk guitar, chirping synths: Everything is in motion, and yet curiously, nothing seems to be moving. A guitar figure like a crying baby keeps tripping the song’s downbeat, and in the closing seconds, a phased guitar line comes in played by Robert Fripp, layering 5/4 over 4/4 and effectively erasing whatever forward momentum this blank, pistoning thing was creating to begin with. The groove feels uncanny, a little inhuman, like a flag rippling in no wind.

The words, meanwhile, consist of barked nonsense syllables from Hugo Ball, a German poet of the Dada School. Dadaism mocked the very idea that words could convey meaning, that speakers could carry authority; for a band so devoted to verbal communication they named themselves after it, it was a forbidding gesture. And for fans of the New York band in the late ’70s, hearing “I Zimbra” might have felt like watching their hero obliterated in the first frame of the movie.

It was exactly this sort of hero’s-journey narrative into which Fear of Music seemed to cast a wrench. The band’s popularity and acclaim had been gathering heat; “Take Me to the River,” their stiff-legged cover version of the Al Green standard, peaked at No. 26 on the Hot 100.

NEW / Released in 1979 / Reissue 2013

Tracklist:

A1 I Zimbra

A2 Mind

A3 Paper

A4 Cities

A5 Life During Wartime

A6 Memories Can't Wait

B1 Air

B2 Heaven

B3 Animals

B4 Electric Guitar

B5 Drugs