“Hi, I’ve got a tape I want to play.” So begins the journey into one of the most incredible concerts ever committed to celluloid and its brilliant accompanying soundtrack. Stop Making Sense begins with David Byrne walking out on an empty stage devoid of any set or backdrop. As the camera follows his feet towards the lone microphone stand at front stage centre he places a boom box (ah yes, the 80’s!) to his left and presses play to fire up the backing drum beat to Psycho Killer.
It’s a killer opening in more ways than one. Armed with nothing more than a driving beat and an acoustic guitar, a bug-eyed Byrne stares into the blackness of the audience with a beguiling look that leaves you wondering if indeed he’s the killer or the target. It soon becomes clear it’s the latter as he weaves around that vast empty space in that awkward, yet somehow fluid motion strumming his guitar in that all too distinctive rhythm, staggering around the stage as the staccato beats mimic gunfire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phvKAm_v5og
The concert builds literally as band members are added one at a time with each successive song as drum risers and various platforms are added for the other instruments. Regular band members Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison are joined by members of George Clinton’s band Parliament-Funkadelic – Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt on backing vocals and Bernie Worrell on keys; along with Steve Scales on percussion and guitarist Alex Weir (The Brothers Johnson).
And that’s what makes this such an amazing record, for while Talking Heads had been embracing African rhythms as far back as 1980’s Remain In Light the band never sounded as fat and funky as they did on Stop Making Sense. Bernie Worrell had previously played with Talking Heads following the release of Remain In Light on their 80/81 tour (along with other notables like Adrian Belew & Nona Hendryx); and while the live performances from that tour were later released on The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads the songs still didn’t carry the punch that they do on Stop Making Sense. The added advantage of this album over its live predecessor is that it also includes selections from 1983’s brilliant Speaking In Tongues with songs like Swamp, Slippery People, Burning Down The House and Girlfriend Is Better.
The downside to this soundtrack album is that many superb performances from the film missed the cut like Crosseyed And Painless, This Must Be The Place and Heaven. All the more reason to not only dig out the album, but watch the film as well!
It’s hard to single out any one song because they’re all incredibly good. So good, that these live songs are the definitive versions for me. Take a song like Life During Wartime – compared to 1979’s Fear Of Music original recording this one is faster, fatter and fittingly frantic, allowing a now more confident performer in David Byrne to capitalise on his quirky and neurotic presence by injecting far more personality into the song. It’s like the song has at long last found its place in the hyper-driven 80’s – a pumped up, steroid induced workout of self obsession and paranoia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVHNwBbkSj4
Other notable tracks include Psycho Killer (sounding much more menacing than the original) and the tribal funk of Slippery People, but if there’s one song that defines the essence of Talking Heads it would have to be Once In A Lifetime. It’s a song that questions the status quo of the relative comfort of suburban America, exposing the dream for the myth in that it’s the “same as it ever was” as society consumes en mass “letting the days go by”. And then the realisation as the dream becomes a nightmare “My God! What have I done?”
Stop Making Sense stands up as a cleverly conceived piece of theatre with the show being constructed around the band. The choreography, lighting and visuals brilliantly compliment the inventive staging to the point where something always seems to be changing or happening on stage. It’s the antithesis of every boring gig you’ve ever witnessed where the band are playing their usual set going through the motions.
By December 1983 when these concerts were filmed at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood the band had already mastered the visual domain of MTV with standout clips for Once In A Lifetime and Burning Down The House both receiving high rotation on music television. Now they’d taken it one step further by creating a highly conceptualised production from start to finish. A head bobbing David Byrne swimming in an oversized suit became the defining image for the concert and of course was perfect visual fodder for MTV to further promote the film. Talking Heads were a band you couldn’t help but notice.
Given the amount of work in developing and pulling off such an audacious venture in retrospect it might be tempting to suggest that it was part of some well conceived marketing plan by the band’s management or record company, but even after the success of their previous album Speaking In Tongues (and their first US top ten hit with Burning Down The House) Talking Heads were still a band very much on the fringe. That’s why the band had to raise the $1.2 million to make the film and in doing so were able to retain control of the project.
Is Stop Making Sense an accurate representation of the band as a live entity? For those 3 shows in Hollywood, yes, and perhaps to a lesser extent the rest of that tour. As a work of art it’s a flawless and superbly conceived vision with a soundtrack that is the very best of Talking Heads.
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