summer album of the week 08/01/09
talking heads: fear of music (released august 1979)
Released when punk thrived in the underground and disco ruled the airwaves, Fear of Music continued Talking Heads’ march to rhythmic oblivion while it accelerated the band’s ripening pop maturity. The difference was evident right from the album’s onset as producer Brian Eno and guest guitarist Robert Fripp designed a textured mural of groove for the band’s nonsense chants to bounce off. But Fear of Music exhilarates most when singer David Byrne lets loose with lyrics and vocals full of doomsday tics, from the survivalist funk of Life During Wartime to the loss of metropolitan identity in the jittery Cities. “Pull down the shade,” murmurs Byrne during Drugs. “It’ll be over in a minute or two.” Fear of Music, then, is the sound of summer pop hitting the boiling point.
I am a native Kentuckian and freelance journalist who has been writing about contemporary music for the Lexington Herald-Leader since 1980. I have not a lick of honest musical talent myself, just a pair of appreciative ears for jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass, Americana, soul, Celtic, Cajun, chamber, worldbeat, nearly every form of rock 'n' roll imaginable and, when pressed, the occasional tango and polka.