Product Description

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: TALKING HEADS
Title: MORE SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS & F
Street Release Date: 07/07/1987
Domestic
Genre: ROCK/POP

Track Listing

1. Thank You for Sending Me an Angel
2. With Our Love
3. Good Thing
4. Warning Sign
5. Girls Want to Be with the Girls
6. Found a Job
7. Artists Only
8. I'm Not in Love
9. Stay Hungry
10. Take Me to the River
11. Big Country

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26058 in Music
• Brand: TALKING HEADS
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Choosing former Roxy Music member and David Bowie collaborator Brian Eno to produce them, Talking Heads expanded their sound greatly for their 1978-released second album. While most associated Eno with hi-tech, electronic fare, he surprisingly brought out the more organically rhythmic side of the Heads' material. With Jerry Harrison's keyboards playing a more pronounced role--most notably on their spirited hit cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River"--and drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth powering the band through tracks like "Stay Hungry" and "Warning Sign," leader David Byrne sounded more relaxed and "normal," even as he wandered through such high-concept works as "Artists Only" and the sprawling "Big Country." --Billy Altman

Customer Reviews

As funky as hell
More Songs About Buildings And Food sees the Heads moving away from their poppier first album and, under the guidance of Brian Eno, discovering that there had always been a dance element to their music. It's an inspired move - whereas before Byrne had been the focus of the band, the formidable Weymouth / Frantz rhythm section relly makes its presence felt here: from With Our Love through Found A Job up to Stay Hungry, they just keep churning out those grooves. Retrospectively, this was an element of their music that was already there just waiting to be expanded upon: several of the songs featured on the album had already been written, sometimes as long as two years before the release of the record, and were already (I think) part of the band's live repertoire. Byrne's lyrics and way with a chorus are not forgotten, however - Good Thing has an absolute monster of a chorus. Another excellent feature of the album is that many of the songs crescendo at the end with an absolutely storming vamp that you want to continue forever.
The Big Country deserves special mention because it showed that the band still had much more to explore - it's a melodic, country tinged, slightly balladic (although not actually a ballad - they didn't do one of those till their seventh album) song about an idealised American heartland; although in typical Byrne style the narrator of the song doesn't seem to find the vision particularly appealing ('I wouldn't live there if you paid me'). They wouldn't really travel in this direction again until Little Creatures, although nothing on there is as good as The Big Country.
Overall, the album is excellent. As with Fear of Music, Remain In Light and Speaking In Tongues, if you're a music fan of any sort you should consider getting it. If you scroll up you'll find some preview links - I suggest you click them.

Their finest studio recording
For a band that produced many fine and innovative studio recordings, I can say without hesitation that this is their absolute best. David Byrne's lyrics are scalpel-sharp, especially on "I'm Not in Love." Other songs feature his quirky observations, such as in the "Big Country" or "The Girls Just Want to Be With the Girls." The music is tight, with expertly timed stop-starts, unusual chord changes, and hypnotic riffs. I find that the songs "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel" and "Found a Job" are the true stand-outs. However, those who are only vaguely familiar with the Talking Heads will zero-in on the cover version of "Take Me to the River," which though it brought the band some much needed attention, had the effect of overshadowing what was otherwise perhaps the finest album recorded in the decade of the 70s.

Hypnotic, Vivid and Challenging
I saw Talking Heads perform at the Fox-Warfield Theater in San Francisco (1979). David Byrne looked like a geek on stage spouting dumb lines like "Girls don't want to play like that, just want to talk to the boys" (The Girls Want To Be With The Girls), Chris Frantz played what looked like a one-hundred dollar drum kit from Sears and his sophomoric style was far from captivating (an exception is his exuberant work on `Artists Only'), and organist Jerry Harrison seemed to be stroking the ivories while paying little attention to what was going on about him. Despite the off-key instrumental harmonies (With Your Love), Byrne's nervous and shaky vocal delivery, and sudden tempo changes with little warning (Stay Hungry); I was hypnotized for an hour and a half by the rich layering of vocals and instrumentals.

The glue that holds the compositions of More Songs About Buildings And Food together is Tina Weymouth's rhythmic and understated base lines. Without her concrete rhythm chords anchoring the tenuous melodies and dissonant harmonies, More Songs would collapse into an incongruous pile of musical rubble. Talking Heads has been tagged with a "New Wave" banner, but I believe that the band's stylistic focus is closer to that of Booker T. & The MG's. The rhythm and blues influence is highlighted on `Found A Job' and `Artists Only.'

Of all the cuts on More Songs, `Take Me To The River' received the most airplay and is easily recognizable as a Talking Heads signature tune, but it is not the most powerful or compelling composition here. For sheer energy and musical dynamics, `Artists Only' and `I'm Not In Love' win handsdown. More Songs About Buildings And Food is hypnotic, vivid and challenging.