Talking Heads: 77 (1977)

(Sire)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

In 1961, MAD magazine ran an incredibly prophetic article called "Tomorrow's Parents" revolving around what would happen when beatniks stepped up to the helm of responsibility. This was before the Summer of Love and long before baby boomers joined yuppiedom in droves the same way they'd been drafted to fight in Vietnam. The question MAD begs is essentially that, if today's teenager is sincere in his or her rebellion, is it not true that the only natural rebellion for the following generation is a rejection of the freeform values of their parents? MAD shoots holes not in the ideology of the young set it satirizes -- and incidentally was then its target audience -- but in the inevitable hypocrisy it breeds, in the impossibility of living on principles. (The Beatles: "All you need is love." Keith Richards: "Try livin' off it.")

Rock & roll enjoys an elastic definition. It can encompass with full enthusiasm the amateurish garage band next door, the Katy Perrys on MTV at this very second, the amateurish garage band on MTV, the Katy Perrys next door (I know some people who wish), the rich white man who subscribes to Car & Driver, Maxim, and Spin and hangs his coat on a signed Clapton axe. Like everything else, it has its elitists, the folks who stand reciting their oral version of The Past, the ones who still know/care who Alan Freed was, the ones who look at whatever comes along and tell us why it is not in keeping with the spirit of you know what.

I am not speaking of the people whose awareness of pop music fails to go beyond "Purple People Eater," the ones who closed their ears when the Who came on the radio. These people are not surly old codgers. They can wrap their heads around that which makes its rebuttal to the world clear. Often they adore hip-hop, Nirvana, Eminem. When the Sex Pistols came along it was the first time in a while that a lot of them felt like they understood. It was explicit and confrontational and to many people, it felt like the potential of rock was being realized to its fullest.

In New York City, something smarter was brewing. Rarely has so much talent centered so much around a single building. CBGB's must have been a portal to the great beyond or something. Go out some time and observe your local bands perform. Now imagine that you live in New York City at the U.S. bicentennial and your local bands consist of Blondie, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Television, and Talking Heads. Would make Friday nights a lot more interesting, no?

To be fair, all of the above except the Ramones became critical darlings quickly. There were a few dissenting voices, a lot of them from the same stripe of rock "fan" that was trashing disco because of homophobia. Some accused Smith of poetic melodrama, Television of being the Grateful Dead reborn, Blondie of being bubblegum in disguise (which is what punk is, by the way), and Talking Heads of being... sincere.

Conservatively dressed, their lead singer looking and acting like a born-again, robotic Buddy Holly, they sang songs that could well be Republican campaign anthems. "I see the states across this big nation / I see the laws made in Washington D.C. / I think of the ones I'd consider my favorites." Love becomes a task: "I called in sick, I won't go to work today / I'd rather be with the one I love / I NEGLECT MY DUTIES, I'll be in trouble." And how's this for right-wing? "So many people have their problems / I'm not interested in their problems / I guess I've experienced some problems / But now I've made some decisions."

The Heads were that MAD article, fully realized in three dimensions. They threw the two-faced nature of rock's ideal elite in the air for all to see because they confronted the world with their own unique rebellion, which is supposed to be the point of the music, but because they offered values distasteful to those who had built the mainstream and because they didn't underline everything to show the irony, they frightened people, especially those who were riding Johnny Rotten like a horse to salvation.

Of course the Heads' early work was satirical (with a Scottish eccentric and a woman in the band and, later, an integrated live lineup, they were not exactly WASP), but I also think there was sincerity in it. As Byrne himself has said, it was an attempt at understanding a fickle world, through humor and ideas. It forced rockers to examine their idea of the enemy. The Heads paid no attention to their "scene" or to what they were supposed to be, even openly embracing sugary pop and disco. Long after the impact of most punk has faded, they remain potent because they were the true rejection, the true intellectual challenge to both an industry establishment and to the increasingly mad society around them. In a sense, I believe they may be the only true punk-rock band. So much '60s pop tied itself to the turmoil of the day and now suffers for it. Maybe the Heads knew it and maybe they didn't, but the upheaval and insanity they captured on "Psycho Killer" and "Don't Worry About the Government" is something timeless and far more disruptive.

David Byrne knew that the most potent satire was more scary than funny, and he had an uncanny ability to use this to the fullest advantage, embracing a childlike perspective but with a sinister current provided by the impossibly simplified perspectives that mark so much inflammatory political and philosophical discussion. When he's angry, it gets to you. In "No Compassion," he is soulless, apathetic, and quietly hateful. The casual abandon in his words and vocals are more frightening than anything in the Pistols' catalog because there seems to be no escape from him, and the music isn't wild enough to punctuate his ideas and give us relief.

There is a less than subtle conclusion, though, as on side two Byrne draws a line to a sequel of sorts, the most popular early Heads track, "Psycho Killer," on which Byrne again accuses everyone and everything of being against him but ultimately is clearly off the deep end, sliding in and out of French at random and ranting cluelessly about "conversation." Nonetheless, you don't doubt the title, especially in the song's funniest/creepiest punchline: "I hate people when they're not polite!"

Byrne's detachment, ironic or not, would mean nothing if there wasn't a delicacy to his work. The fact that he can sing "Compassion is a virtue / But I don't have the time" makes the poignant moments twice as effective, but of course they are abstract and unclear. On the band's first single "Love -> Building on Fire," not included here, you can hear Byrne finding freedom and exhilaration within his cold sensibility. Byrne -- or rather his persona -- moving farther into this tunnel would be the running arc through the first four Talking Heads albums.

When human emotion does come to the forefront, as it does in spots throughout the record (for all their humor, "Pulled Up" and "Don't Worry About the Government" both come across in the end as adorably felt), it is joyously, flamboyantly surrendered to -- an apt foreshadowing of Stop Making Sense. The most moving song on the record revolves around what sounds like Byrne's seduction of a pined-for lover, his feelings for whom turn out surprisingly to be reciprocated. "I'm embarrassed to admit it hit the soft spot in my heart / When I found out you wrote the book I read." The song includes the most memorable line on 77: "I'm spinning around and I feel all right / The book I read was in your eyes."

But the most beautiful song here, "First Week/Last Week... Carefree" comes thanks to the rest of the band, always offering a colorful environment for Byrne's one-man dramas. In fact, one reason I find the Heads' music so fascinating is that the music tends to be the foreground, the vocals the background. Brian Eno would, on later efforts, use this characteristic to great effect. With a backdrop of coproducers Tony Bongiovi and Lance Quinn's tasteless but somehow appropriate brass (they wanted to put cellos on "Psycho Killer"), Byrne meanders through a rant about surveillance or meetings or something and at the instrumental break completely loses in his mind in a magical, wordless chant -- the first hint of the alarmingly proficient body music the Heads would unexpectedly become known for.

"First Week" is the least ironic number here and one of the best, but not the most accomplished. On this debut album, the songs have to work doubly hard because of low production values that turn the first half into a jangly mess, so unimaginatively recorded by Bongiovi and Quinn that it becomes monotonous and feels almost like filler. As such, the songs that stick are the ones that display most effectively the Heads' range of influences and their sheer ambition, which of course would pay off later, and yet in its best moments 77 feels complete, not just a predecessor to greater things. "Uh-oh, Love Comes to Town" is a particular joy, recalling the Jackson Five, while the breathless "Pulled Up" is the point at which it all comes together.

Too often on Talking Heads: 77, the production conceals the brilliance of the musicianship of Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, and Chris Frantz, particularly Weymouth, as her bass is buried in the mix. "Pulled Up" is the rawest band performance on this album and also contains Byrne's most riveting moments. The lyrics, like "Don't Worry About the Government," recall the Modern Lovers (Harrison's old band) and the Friends-era Beach Boys. Far less effort is taken to bury the humor on this closing track; what's amazing is that the fascinating sense of detachment that makes the band's early work so endearing is still there, but so is an undeniable conviction. Byrne sounds for all the world like a ridiculously happy little boy, albeit one who knows every vocal tic in "Not Fade Away" back to front. "Mommy, Daddy come and look at me now / I'm a grown man in a great big town," he sings, proudly wailing about his success (he was in fact living in a dingy apartment with Chris and Tina at the time) and thanking his parents for everything they did for him. It's not rude or mean or sardonic, which because of its medium makes it all three. That also means it's simultaneously touching and surreal; the results are spellbinding. You believe every word.

They're playing a song about how much they love their parents. Another one about how much people owe to civil servants. Another one about how everyone needs to stop whining about their problems. Another one preaching intolerance and violence. Another one that argues that work is more important than human relationships. They are everything but rock & roll, and there's nothing more rock & roll than that.

[Updated version of a review I posted at d-b.com in 2004. Only changed a reference to Avril into one to Katy Perry (not that I believe the two are interchangeable), corrected my vastly ridiculous literal interpretation of "The Book I Read," and fleshed out the section on "First Week."]

[SEE ALSO:]
Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites (1975-92)
Bonus Rarities & Outtakes (1975-92)