started the Artistics with drummer Chris Frantz. Frantz’s girlfriend and eventual wife Tina Weymouth then became the band’s bassist as they relocated to New York and adopted the name. Opening for the Ramones at CBGB for their first show in 1975, Talking Heads became the quirky, bookish counterpoint to the more brash, Stooges-inspired bands defining New York’s first wave of punk rock.
Still, the music continues to inspire across generations and genres. In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the band’s iconic 1983 Jonathan Demme-directed concert filmwas recently re-released in theaters by A24.
Building on Fire.” That provides the perfect context for a revelatory second half, with some of the headier studio creations fromTalking Heads may be one of the only bands in history whose work got more polished and commercial when they started self-producing their albums. That’s not a bad thing per se, particularly in the case of, which presents a cleaner, more spacious version of the synth-heavy grooves the band cultivated on its Brian Eno-produced work.