Track by Track: Talking Heads – Remain in Light (SAME AS IT EVER WAS)
Talking Heads – Remain in Light
Released Octorber 8, 1980
New Wave, Post-Punk
Author’s note: This is the first ever post of Track by Track (name pending), a series of album reviews that focus on the first impressions of albums that I have listened to for the first time. These reviews were made in real time, meaning that the sentiments written are captured in the moment they were first conceived with minimal editing added later on. It should also be stated that I have no formal training in music, nor do I understand the complexities behind composing songs or albums. This is strictly for fun and should not be taken academically. This review was the first time I ever tried the exercise and will be a little rough around the edges.
I’ve never listened to a Talking Heads album, or heard a lot of their songs. My more recent exposure to them was through a CNN documentary series on the 70’s, where to the shock of my friends watching with me I admitted I had not listened to them before. So I feel a little bit of redemption being able to listen to an album of theirs now. This album has two very different sides to it and while this might seem that overall it makes the album weaker, I say that it makes people love it for very different reasons. And that’s actually kind of neat when you can have a change like night and day and still feel like it’s all part of the same product. Lots of things that I feel might have molded some of the music I know a lot better, which always fun to hear influences.
I decided to get started on this album earlier in the morning, while I started making breakfast.
* * *
Born Under Punches – (5:49)
This first track is like if Roxanne was a five minute jam band song.
Crosseyed and Painless – (4:48)
This track is like a David Bowie song from the 70’s for people who are tired of always listening to Bowie but still want to listen to Bowie despite their exhaustion. The beat still making my head bob while I eat my breakfast so I’m still digging it.
The Great Curve – (6:28)
This song is Kathy from HR’s morning jam. She’s been doing this job for years and she has never been a morning person. She needs coffee to function at any time before 9:30-10 and this girl has her gambit down pat because she has her morning cups no more than five minutes after she gets up and five minutes after she gets to work. The caffeine doesn’t work as quickly as it might have in the past, it builds up slowly and hits its stride like a morning runner breaking into a runner’s high at the crest of a hill. Once she reaches the tempo, there is no stopping Kathy from getting shit done that day and she’ll ride that energy out until 12:35 when she takes her lunch.
The song was pretty meh until i reached the halfway point, the momentum in this track is kind of mesmerizing.
Once in a Lifetime – (4:23)
SAME AS IT EVER WAS
SAME AS IT EVER WAS
The image of Kermit the frog singing this song keeps popping in my head. Big shoulders. Weird televangelist vibe during the speaking bits. One of the few Talking Heads songs I knew before listening to this album. Pop culture and all that. I consider this the end of side A, despite the track list of the album saying differently.
Houses in Motion – (4:33)
It’s a decent track that reminds me of Gorillaz and the Mighty Boosh and has the misfortune of being the follow up track to Once in a Lifetime. Weird horn solo in the middle kind of takes me out of the whole experience. There is a part of me that wants to like Houses in Motion more than I do but honestly, I can’t seem to find the love. I just can’t muster the affection.
Seen and Not Seen – (3:25)
This is no one’s favorite song on this album, it reminds me a lot of eating my vegetables as a kid. Like Once in a Lifetime is a gummy vitamin and this is just a horse pill you have to take when your 50 because of a calcium deficiency or cholesterol problem. It’s a sit on a park bench, a rest from the momentum. It feels necessary but I real wish it didn’t so I could dislike it more. David Lynch would have snuck this track somewhere in Twin Peaks, of this I would not doubt. Listening to it closely reminds me of Gorillaz again, specifically Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s head but less story telling and more self-help meditation.
Listening Wind – (4:43)
This track gave me a strange Paul Simon vibe a la Graceland, if it was some kind of evil Paul Simon with a goatee beard like evil Spock in Star Trek. The washboard and deep bass in the beginning sounds menacing. It has that “album ends pretty soon”…
The Overload – (6:02)
Pink Floyd, is that you?
I was expecting this album to have a weak entry for a last track, as I often find is the case for albums that could have ended one song earlier and have been at least 50% better overall. That isn’t to say I liked or disliked the Overload, but it proved to have more substance to it.
Weird, forbidding industrial vibe, like the opening to Blade Runner. Lyrically, it’s a three stanza poem but they drag and last in a 6 minute finale like waiting to hear a court sentence. Bleak, like not knowing where to go or how to even get there if you did. It works REALLY WELL with Listening Wind as a precursor, pairing that shit like a fine wine with a good meal.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, it’s not bad. Not my usual go to but I can give props to the Talking Heads now without sounding like I’m just pulling platitudes out of my ass. There are some albums we listen to that give us a sense of understanding of a genre or an artist/band as a whole and while I wasn’t over the moon about the album as a whole I do feel like I actually learned something and possess a greater understanding of new wave as a whole.
Remain in Light gets an ‘illuminating’ 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Album art, information, track listings and times provided by wikipedia.com.
The cover art copyright is believed to belong to the label, Sire, WMG, or the graphic artist(s), M&Co./MIT.