For as many waves as Talking Heads made in the 80's, it's interesting to see that they didn't have many hits peak on the Billboard Hot 100, only eight in total between 1978 and 1986. Further, none cracked the top twenty. Their biggest hit, Wild Wild Life, only peaked at number twenty-five, with their "worst", Psycho Killer, only landing at ninety-two. That was unexpected to learn.
As noted yesterday, I already listened to their 1983 released Speaking In Tongues, as such, today I'm jumping into 1985's Little Creatures. Additionally, I also covered that broad spectrum of their history in my listening session of 1988's Naked. However, there's a little to touch on before we dive in.
In 1984, Talking Heads recorded what critics would call the greatest concert video of all time, Stop Making Sense. As it opens, David Byrne steps onto an empty stage with a cassette tape player, and acoustic guitar. He announces he wants to play a tape for the audience, and pressing play, the mixing board begins a drumbeat. Byrne then begins to strum his guitar and sing Psycho Killer.
As he finishes, Tina Weymouth walks out on stage with him, and they perform Heaven. As they strum their last notes, an excited Chris Frantz jumps onto the stage, taking his seat at the drums. With three members playing, they perform Thank You For Sending Me An Angel.
Jerry Harrison then joins them, and together they perform Found A Job. Percussionist, Steve Scales, and backing vocalists Lynn Mabry, and Ednah Holt then step out from each side of the stage, and the song Slippery People is played. Last up are Alex Weir, and Bernie Worrell appear, and with everyone finally on stage together, the concert takes off with Burning Down The House.
Riding this success, Little Creatures would go on to become Talking Heads biggest selling album of all time. This was aided by the band fully embracing the MTV generation, and releasing several music videos, all of which featured their signature quirkiness.
Playing through it, it doesn't resonate with me as much as 1980's Remain In The Light, but it definitely gets immediate points for starting with the hit, And She Was. It's the tune I bought the album for, and if nothing else, I was happy to have gotten that from it.
Fortunately, that wasn't all. Though it was all new territory for me from there, I also enjoyed the songs, Lady Don't Mind, Perfect World, Stay Up Late, Walk It Down, and Television Man.
What I noticed right out of the starting gate was the immediately shift in style. While their 1980 album was more funky art rock, Little Creatures was embracing full a pop rock, and perhaps even radio friendly mainstream style. Mind you, I didn't hate it one bit, but it definitely caught me off guard on the heels of its predecessor.
Overall, I'm appreciating the band far more than I expected, especially in hindsight of my initial reviews of Naked and Speaking In Tongues. As I said in yesterday's post, I may need to give those two another shot.
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