Stop Making Sense (Live) - Talking Heads
First off, well done to
@LGWIO for the excellent nomination of this album, and by extension, film to see for me.
@Saddleworth2 did a great job in describing my same perception of the film too – it really was a visual masterpiece, even with “chicken man” Byrne leading those in this high energy performance. Foggy did a great job in prepping us for how the movie would start, but no amount of descriptions to the “add a musician a song” had me prepared for how it set itself up. I think the crowd shots that you could see time to time offstage was a good prep for the enjoyed groove that
@threespires noted. After the first set of songs where the band came out, everyone was standing and most everyone I could see was dancing and having fun. I think the encore especially in showing the enJOYment and overall diversity of the crowd was a cool thing and one I think was pretty much a rare scene at a show (short of a few other bands) for its time. Well done to Jonathan Demme and the band on that.
But we’re here to discuss the record. I was familiar with Talking Heads mostly from early 1980s FM radio. “Psycho Killer”, “Take Me To The River”, “Life During Wartime”, “Once in a Lifetime”, and “Crosseyed and Painless” were all rock radio staples that I knew by heart. On this record and of those songs, only do I feel “Psycho Killer” underwent a significant transformation, and as I recall, was a big hit live from this record due to its uniqueness. But during that time, I didn’t collect or own their records – they were enjoyable, but maybe I was too young to appreciate them being focused on more harder rock at that time. Besides, I could always rely on hearing their hits daily on WMMR or WYSP (Philly FM radio).
When “Burning Down the House” was released in 1983 off of
Speaking in Tongues, it was initially enjoyed – until it was overplayed. By the time this movie came out, hearing the live version of this song was simply too much after overexposure of the studio version prior. I didn’t go see the movie, but I did go see and very much enjoy “The Wall”, “The Song Remains the Same”, and “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”.
I do think the song I enjoyed the most off this album was “Heaven”, which on this album was MUCH better than the original song from 1979’s
Fear of Music. The tempo was slowed down, and really hits the mark here with just David and Tina performing.
Some of the other songs here for me fell flat, and mostly due to too much synths. I realize while TH was a 4 piece band, having extra touring members was needed here for all of the sounds required. While I enjoyed the bongos, I felt the synths on some songs went way overboard, and had me harkening for the original sound. I also recall my college roommate overplaying “Swamp” off of this album in 1985, and wow could that song get on my nerves, with the vocals there were overly grating. Other songs not especially enjoyed were “Making Flippy Floppy”, “Thank You For Sending Me an Angel”, “Found a Job”, and that was mostly for the vocals, not the music. Maybe I’m not used to those songs and how Byrne sings them, but because of that, I was paying attention to the vocals there, and they just didn’t work for me live.
“Genius of Love (Tom Tom Club)” was a fun diversion for the band while Byrne could presumably rest up and change outfits again.
I’d much prefer a Greatest Hits on this band, with only “Heaven” and “Psycho Killer” included off this album, but the latter would require both versions for me to be content. I did enjoy Talking Heads' 1985 follow-up of
Little Creatures that came out after this live album with 3 of my all-time favourite songs of theirs, but no one needs to Stay Up Late to guess what they are. Overall, this is probably an initial 7.5 with a preferred lean to other studio versions, so I’ll only knock 0.5 vs the Foggy 1.0 and land here at a
7.0/10.
