Remain in Light | Loppylugs

Submitted by Richard Norbury on 19 May 2015 - 9:13pm

Cover:

Artist:

Talking Heads

album-ID:

a_167

Nationality:

USA

Year:

1 980

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)*Crosseyed And Painless*The Great Curve*Once In A Lifetime*Houses In Motion*Seen And Not Seen*Listening Wind*The Overload

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_65

Now-num:

2 015

Spotify-URL:

3AQgdwMNCiN7awXch5fAaG

Short-title:

remainInLight

nominator-ID:

u_14

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

MusicBrainz-URL:

f6b1b900-6108-32f0-abbd-2855af9151eb

Wikipedia-URL:

Remain_in_Light

Spotify-link-type:

album

Discogs-URL:

Talkingheads-Remain-In-Light/master/25688

Allmusic-URL:

remain-in-light-mw0000192118

BBC-URL:

bcnv

rdio-URL:

Talking_Heads/album/Remain_In_Light

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91

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Don't even mention it

1-2-3-4-5-7

There’s an odd shape to this album, it starts and continues for most of the duration with a relentless, restless, high-tempo, ethnic-tinged dance-rock vibe, then there are a few other bits and pieces, which sit at the tail-end of it, that don't seem to fit. Having said that there is, in my opinion, some of the finest music ever created on this album. It’s the perfect marriage of the nutty, experimental, Byrne-Eno-esque whackines and direct funk-pop of the Weymouth-Frantz rhythm section. This is where it all fell into place really. It’s got this compulsive pace where it almost totters over, it’s all slightly unsettlingly fast. Eno apparently wanted to capture this really quickly - it does perhaps feel not completely watertight but that adds to the paranoia and disconcerting nature of it.

Adrian Belew’s guitar playing was perfectly ripe for this album, this is really some phenomenal work from him. I’m thinking particularly of the first solo on the Great Curve which has just the most perfect guitar noises ever emitted. People talk about the polyrhythmic, Fela Kuti inspired rhythms here but there is so much more on this album - a fantastic lyrical performance, wonderful guitar snaking from the Belew, whispy Jon Hassell ambiance, Brian's weird twiddles, disco brass sections - it all melds together in a perfectly plausible and magically original and peerless sound.

There’s a theory, which I strongly contest, that the quicker a band take to write the lyrics then the better they are. That somehow if they are written on the back of a packet of fags in the bog of the recording studio that gives them some honesty and directness not possible otherwise, as if those are the only qualities you would want from lyrics anyway. Apparently it was a long and painful struggle to realise these lyrics, some of the finest ever delivered, wise and insightful but also random, disjointed, amusing and very memorable. All set to some truly exceptional music, surely this is an album that will never be surpassed.
86

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
54

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

1-8