The last great Talking Heads album!
Remain in Light is the last great Talking Heads album.
After this album, Talking Heads became a joke.
This album follows Talking Heads best album ever, Fear Of Music, and their second best album More Songs About Buildings and Food.
If I had to rate Remain In Light, I'd say it was TH's 4th best album, just behind their debut album, Talking Heads '77.
This one is another Brian Eno produced album, and it's quite experimental. This was recorded during the period when the Heads were exploring a lot of African tribal rhythms. There's really not a bad track on the album. The most well known and most played on the radio, etc. song on the album is Once In A Lifetime. This was actually TH's first breakout song.
The rest of the album tends to be a little more experimental than this particular track for the more part, so if you're expecting the whole album to sound like Lifetime, you might be disappointed. There are a lot of interesting rhythms and sonic studio trickery throughout the album.
Progressive/Alternative guitarist Adrian Belew is featured throughout this album, creating all sorts of unusual sounds on guitar, as he's well known for. Belew was a perfect compliment for this type of songwriting and production.
If you are a fan of later Head's (song such as Burning Down The House, Girlfriend Is Better, Road To Nowhere, etc), then this is probably not the album for you...because the Heads had not become "silly" so much yet, as they would on later albums. This is thinking man's (and woman's) music. It's not your average pop-fare...save for the one track, Once In A Lifetime, which probably shouldn't have ever made it on pop radio, yet it's an excellent song, so it deserves to...but again that's the conundrum.
If you like earlier Heads songs such as Psycho Killer, Life During Wartime, Take Me To The River, Air, Memories Can't Wait, etc...then you should probably enjoy Remain In Light.
I recommend anyone to buy the first 4 TH albums, and leave the rest alone.Read full review
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