Albums2010 Revisited: Speaking In Tongues

I think the first time I ever listened to Talking Heads was on CD in my parents' old stereo system. I know technology is a wonderful thing and blah blah blah, but I was thinking about that stereo system the other day. The speakers were strategically placed around the room. The record player, the CD player, the cassette player, all in one cabinet with storage below for vinyl records. The way the sound bars jumped and shifted with the music in that late 80s-'90s kind of way.

(Side note: am I the only one old enough to remember seeing neon markers for the first time? That was like an event when someone had magenta, electric blue, hot pink, and neon yellow markers in elementary school.)

But the album that introduced me to Talking Heads was Stop Making Sense. It took me years before I actually got around to watching the movie (often cited as one of the best concert movies ever made, something I would co-sign.) I had a greatest hits compilation on CD (Sand In The Vaseline: Popular Favorites) that formed the basis of what I knew about the band. I have not done an album-by-album exploration of this band until now.

(And honestly, I was angling for Remain In Light-- which is an incredible album that did make the original run of Albums2010. Given the events of today with the President firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because his tariff nonsense sucks shit and is draining the life out of the economy, this seems like a relevant track.)

But I got Speaking In Tongues, and you know what? It's a great place to start. Their fifth album, and I guess the one considered to be their commercial breakthrough, opens with 'Burning Down The House' on the A-Side-- which, if you've heard a Talking Heads song, it's probably this one. That gets followed up by 'Making Flippy Floppy, ' which is a track that I had never heard before spinning this album up-- it's got a nice undertone of disco and funk to it that you can't ignore. 

'Girlfriend Is Better' threw me for a loop because it's way slower on the album-- part of me thinks that's because my first exposure to a lot of these songs was from Stop Making Sense, where it moves at a faster clip. Don't get me wrong: still a great song-- how are you going to top, 'I've got a girlfriend with bones in her hair/nothing is better than that' for lyrics? But I feel like the pop, squeaks, and background instrumentation are more vibrant on the album track than they are on Stop Making Sense.

'Slippery People' feels closer to what I'm used to. I don't think it carries that LIVE track energy it does on Stop Making Sense, where you can sort of sense the energy of the crowd feeding the band and propelling it along, but again, still a banger track.

The A-Side closes out with 'I Get Wild/Wild Gravity', which is another new track for me. If 'Making Flippy Floppy' has more of a disco/funk vibe, this track brings more of a reggae undertone to the party that I really do like. 

The B-Side opens with 'Swamp' which feels like a complete left turn. It's got growly, almost bluesy vocals, but it stands out as a result. It's funky, but a different kind of funky-- and it might be one of their more unique songs, at least that I've heard so far. It really is a zig where the rest of the album zags, or at least it feels that way. I wish I had more useful and informative things to say about 'Moon Rocks' and 'Pull Up The Roots', but I can't say they particularly stood out to me. I liked them, don't get me wrong-- this is a great album, but when I'm thinking about this album, the A-Side Tracks I didn't know stand out more than the B-Sides did. I don't know why that it is.

Everything closes with 'This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)', and that's another favorite of mine and it's kind of the perfect track to fade out this album with, in many ways. Delicate and light, it's a pretty song. 

I'm going to be getting more Talking Heads albums. Remain In Light remains on my wish list, but Speaking In Tongues was a great addition to the expanding vinyl collection we've got going on. And honestly, with nine tracks in total on the album, I knew five of them going in, and I picked up two more tracks I hadn't heard previously that I enjoyed. 7 out of 9 tracks isn't bad, and it's not as if the B-Side Tracks I didn't know were bad, either-- I just didn't find them all that memorable.

But this is still one of my favorite bands.