Title:More Songs About Buildings and Food By: Talking Heads Released by: Sire/Warner Bros. Released on: 1978 Rating (out of 10): 7 Date: 05/24/2001
More Songs About David Byrne Not Having to Prove That He's Creative (A Socratic Dialogue Between Two Talking Heads Fans)
Jody Beth Rosen: I maintain that Talking Heads: 77, the first record by Talking Heads, is the best Talking Heads record.
Phineas Q. Rockdweeb: You're wrong.
JBR: Oh?
PQR:More Songs About Buildings and Food is vastly superior.
JBR: Why?
PQR: I dunno. It rocks more.
JBR:77 doesn't rock?
PQR:77 is silly. I think it's overrated.
JBR: You take that back!
PQR: I won't. Buildings and Food is better 'cuz it has tighter songs, more-focused playing, and that Brian Eno production that 77 didn't have. See, 77 would have been great if it was produced by Eno, because it clearly wanted to be an album produced by Eno (case in point, the subsequent release of the first Devo record, which sounds pretty similar to this stuff—that sensuously mechanized post-glam alienated art-punk mutation), except for one thing: 77wasn't produced by Eno. This one was. And it was the best of the Eno trilogy—Fear of Music and Remain in Light have their moments too, but nothing like this. Plus, it rocks.
JBR: Fine. But you can't judge Talking Heads by how much they rock. If you do, you're missing the point. The Heads were as much an anti-rock band as they were a rock band. You don't play your Heads records with the intention of being rocked. Oh, and I don't like Remain in Light that much. The second side sucks ass.
PQR: "Rock" is a very subjective term, though. I mean, I've heard Madonna songs that I thought rocked. It's all about the way something hits you on a gut level.
JBR: I'd like to hit you on a gut level!
PQR:Buildings and Food actually reminds me a lot of Some Girls by The Rolling Stones. Without the sexism and profanity.
JBR: Well, right. I can see parallels between those two—the disco, funk, and R & B leanings. And I can hear similarities between Tina Weymouth's bass playing and Bill Wyman's on that album.
PQR: But Buildings and Food is a much better album than Some Girls.
JBR: Naturally. But the point I was trying to make was that you're not supposed to approach the Heads' music the way you'd approach a more linear rock band, like The Stones (even if they did have a few disco experiments).
PQR: How am I supposed to "approach" this band, then?
JBR: It all comes down to why you decide to play a certain album. When you listen to Foghat, it's not because you're in the mood for a thinking-man's dance party, right? And you wouldn't put on Buildings and Food when you're cruising around in your low-rider, drinking canned beer out of a paper bag.
PQR: Maybe you wouldn't.
JBR: Okay. Enough of this. Gimme your favorite songs on Buildings and Food.
PQR: "The Good Thing." One of the Heads' first forays into reggae—they'd always had a slight dub influence in the bass lines, but you can really hear it here in the harmonies and in Byrne's guitar.
JBR: It's got a nice, breezy, calypso feel. With the more serious turn in the chorus that saves it from Jimmy Buffett shlockiness.
PQR: "As we economize, efficiency is multiplied/To the extent I am determined the result is the good thing."
JBR: All that great signature pseudoanthroponomic Byrne gibberish.
PQR: Um, what else is on there? "Warning Sign," of course. This one picks up where "No Compassion" and "Psycho Killer" left off on 77. It—wait a minute.
JBR: What?
PQR: I figured out what I don't like about 77. Byrne is just too damn jolly-sounding on those tracks. Except—except—for "No Compassion" and "Psycho Killer," in which he takes the stilted neuroticism of his David Byrne-flavored lyrical personality and channels it through all this, uh—I wanna say frustration, but that's not good enough.
JBR: Yeah, like a really acute disappointment that's more angry than depressed. Frazzled? No, I hate that word. You tell me. Like Michael Douglas in Falling Down.
PQR: Frazzled, maybe. So the entire Buildings and Food album is, for me, an extension of the feeling he captures on those two tracks. And "Warning Sign" is the climax. Ya know, "Hear my voice, hear my voice/It's saying something and it's not very nice."
JBR: Jolly? There are jolly moments on Buildings and Food too. "The Girls Want to Be With the Girls" is pretty peppy, no? And the obvious sequel to "Tentative Decisions" on 77. It's ironic sexism! I can imagine how much it confused all the art-school girls when it first came out!
PQR: Oh yeah. Actually I find "The Girls Want to Be With the Girls" one of the weaker songs. Too didactic. I dunno.
JBR: It's not supposed to be. Hey, wanna talk about didactic? A little song tacked on to the end called "The Big Country"? And that song doesn't even rock! How can you listen to an album where one of the songs doesn't rock???
PQR: Yeah, see, but I think Byrne's making fun of people who say things like "I wouldn't live there if you paid me to." Nobody gets that. It's a satire on the earnestness of his punk brethren. Hell, if he took himself so seriously, he wouldn't sing "Goo goo ga ga ga" at the end! (Unless that's a post-hipster attempt at studied infantilism—so people will say "See? He can't be taking himself that seriously!")
JBR: It's rooted in the same irony as "The Girls"—that tongue-in-cheek indictment of the academic/starving poet sense of self-righteousness.
PQR: Indeed!
JBR: But you can't deny the silliness of "Artists Only."
PQR: I love "Artists Only"!
JBR: Oh yeah. I suppose it "rocks" enough for you, even though Byrne gets to say things like "I'm cleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaning my brain!" Thank you Homer Simpson!
PQR: I can forgive him for that.
JBR: He also gets to say "I don't have to prove that I am creative."
PQR: Yup. Good line.
JBR: And he may say it, but he proves it with the cover of "Take Me To the River"—this is where it starts to become evident that he wants to dismantle his dweebish image and pay tribute to a real, unpretentious form of music, something not so "artful" and "important" as the genre they had helped create.
PQR: Uh huh. So it sounds like you're going to bat for Buildings and Food now. What is it you prefer about 77?
JBR: I think it doesn't try as hard as Buildings and Food. I love that album, as you know, but it can get a bit too self-conscious at times—77 is confident and sexy. It may be full of itself, with its occasional blatant disregard for sense, or humility, or Rock Music. I mean, it's pretty arrogant stuff! "I'm so ambitious! I feel wonderful!" And even with "No Compassion," he paints himself as someone who's a humanitarian—he has listened to people's problems without judgement for so long and only now he realizes he's sick of it and everyone can go to H-E-two-sticks. And it rocks by its own measure—not anyone else's.
PQR: Again, I don't hate 77, I just think it's a bit overrated. But I also think Naked is a great record. And everyone hates that.
JBR: I like Naked. It's better than that bland yuppie True Stories mid-'80s shit. But I don't think any of their '80s music (and the majority of their late '70s music!) rocks half as much as 77. It rocks because it's not even trying to, and it does anyway. That's an empirical fact. Deal with it.
