Customer Reviews

12 x 12 Original Remixes

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I became a late fan of Talking Heads starting with the Little Creatures album. I worked backwards and now I love the whole catalog. I was at first very skeptical with this release. However, after my first listening of this CD I was very happy I bought it. It contains all of the 12" mixes from their later singles (Little Creatures-True Stories-Naked). The remixes enhance all of the songs and makes them different from the originals. My favorite was As She Was. The only tedious moment was the second mix of Blind. One remix was enough. Bottom line: Talking Heads fans will probably like this 71 minute CD. It will make you look forward to the new Stop Making Sense.

If you like the Talking Heads and you like disco remixes, you will love this CD.

In the later days of disco (after the classic period of the Donna Summer and the Bee Gees), it was common to take New Wave music and electronically remix and extend it. These were sold as EP's, which were basically singles on a 12 inch record and played in discos. Some of the extended mixes were very good. One of my favorites was Blonde's Rapture. Others were done poorly or were just annoying. That is what I think of most of the ones on this CD.

The best extended disco mixes included involvement from the band with new music being recorded and being edited in to the original. The worst consisted of outsiders taking the music and just looping sections of it. The Thomas Dolby 12 x 12 is very good.

Most of the tracks here are extended just by simply looping sections of it. This type of music is really a struggle to sit through. It is boring if you just sit and listen to it. If you have it in the background, the constant looping is just annoying. It is if you had an LP that got stuck.

Where there are new additions, they are just silly noises. There are whoop, whoops from Byrne. And nyeah, nyeah's from the band.

This music type of music is only of any value for dancing. So, if you turn you family room into a disco, with flashing lights and really loud stereo, you might enjoy it. However, I think there is much better dance music out there.

A much better dance CD and/or DVD from the Talking Heads is Stop Making Sense.

I'm a big fan of the Talking Heads and must say that it is completely worth it. Not only is there a new spin on classicly great songs from their last wo albums, but occasionally it almost sounds like they teased out individual souns clips that are sometimes not theard in the original album recordings due to other louder or more intense sounds. Even David Byrne's voice sounds clearer sometimes. As a long time fan it's also nice to hear a kind of "new" album by my favorite band, especially with some longer versions of these songs. Wahoo!

If you are my age (mid-thirties) then this collection of extended play classics will conjure images of only one thing:

Drinking in college.

Apart from the regrettable ommision of an extended cut of "Road to Nowhere," this collection hits on every hot track from "Little Creatures," and "True Stories."

If you went to NIU, you are attempting to refill a Growler Bucket while not loosing track of some girl who only calls you while she's drunk, and loves the song "And She Was."

These Talking Head songs were tailor made to be stretched and syncopated, and this collection is nicely mastered are artfully aranged.

Such fun.

So, 4-stars sober, 5 after a bucket or two.