Fear of Music

Talking Heads | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002KNY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (105 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,308 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #28 in Music > Alternative Rock > Hardcore & Punk > American Punk
  • #37 in Music > Alternative Rock > New Wave & Post-Punk > Post-Punk
  • #48 in Music > Alternative Rock > Hardcore & Punk > General AAS

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This disc represents the bridge between Talking Heads' first two herky-jerkier albums and the next two funky ones. Fear of Music is more than just a bridge, though. It's the water under the bridge, the air, the animals, the cities the river flows through, and the heaven on top of it all: "...a place where nothing ever happens." Plenty happens here, however. The CD starts out with its feet off the ground and both arms in the air: "I Zimbra" is all-out celebration. The rest of the songs are pretty much exercises in simplicity: one-word titles with music to match. (Witness the lightness of "Air," the trippiness of "Drugs," the "ooga"-ness of "Animals.") David Byrne's artful naiveté ("Hold the paper up to the light/Some rays pass right through"), coupled with the whole band's musical playfulness (for example, the tuba on "Electric Guitar"), makes for fun fun fun. --Dan Leone

Product Description

Audio CD.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 78 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fear of Everything April 12, 2001

By Richard Behrens

Format:Audio CD

This album was recorded by the Talking Heads in Long Island City, NY in 1979 which led me to wonder how Brian Eno got to Queens -- did he take the 7 train to Queens Borough Plaza and then walk over? After all, the 7 train does appear in at least one Talking Heads video. Regardless, this album has a real live feel to it, like it was recorded in someone's living room and mixed to reproduce the live experience of a bass, guitar, drum and keyboard ensemble. It is the Heads at their most trimmed down production and in tone, texture, production values and subject matter, it reminds me of Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division which was also recorded that year. I know the Heads must have had an awareness of Joy Division since their song "The Overload" on Remain In Light (1980) is frighteningly close to JD's "I Remember Nothing." Besides, everyone on earth knew who Joy Division was by 1980.

At first blush, this album is weird, quirky, mysterious and fragmented. But closer examination reveals a pretty huge sense of humor. The title alone, Fear of Music, is hilarious and is a key to the sensibilities that run throughout the songs. David Byrne paints one portrait after another of phobia, fear of electric guiars, fear of animals, fear of air, fear of Heaven, fear of cities, fear of wartime, fear of paper. Fear of paper?

Fear of music is a very city oriented album. It is not an album of art rock by art school students like their first two albums. It is a garage band that has spaced out on too much surrealism, late-night television, science fiction movies and Dadaist poetry. They even use a Dadaist poem by Hugo Ball as the lyrics for "I Zimbra" which is written in pseudo-African words and chanted to hypnotic effect by the Heads to a point where you almost feel emotion coming from the meaningless words. "Mind" and "Paper" are simple themed songs evoking what is probably a metaphor for Self: "Hold the paper/Up to the Light/Some rays they pass right through!"

The two great classics of the album come back to back: "Life During Wartime" and "Cities." They are epic pre-Remain In Light songs that speak of fear and trembling more potently than any other Heads song either before or after. "Find a city/Find myself a city to live in" is evocative of the Mad Max nomad who doesn't fit in anywhere and probably doesn't even have a name. "Life During Wartime" was covered many times with a slightly different sound and in the great concert movie "Stop Making Sense" it even provides a backdrop to a mid-concert aeorbics dance session, but here it is pure and uncut, no doubt recorded moments after Byrne taught the tune to the band, and it shines as a dark, disaffected piece of science fiction poetry. "Burned all my notebooks/What good are notebooks/They won't help me survive/My chest is aching/burns like a furnace/The burning keeps me alive!"

"Memories Can't Wait" is a psychedelic masterpiece. "Air" makes breathing itself seem fearful. "Animals" is disturbing and may be a top of the hat to Pink Floyd that had released their "Animals" album the year before. "Heaven" is a beautiful tune but it even makes Heaven seem sinister. "Drugs" which ends the album is scary to listen to. Byrne jogged around the city block several times before recording his vocals, and you can hear the edge in his voice and the lack of breath as he struggles to get the words out. You can only hope he's acting.

The album made Rolling Stones Top 100 Albums of the last 20 years issue and deserves it. It is a dark testament to a bunch of paranoid musicians huddled in a Queens loft right before they became really, really famous. It is an album that should be studied by historians.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Great album, lousy disc. Buy the UK edition instead. January 31, 2008

By a music fan

Format:Audio CD

This is one of the best albums of the 1970's, an absolutely brilliant combination of new wave and psychedelia that still sounds startlingly original today. Most critically-acclaimed indie bands of the past 20 years sound drab and ordinary compared to what Talking Heads were doing in their prime.

Also, the remastering is excellent. I've heard few CD's that sound as good as this.

So why'd I give it only three stars?

The trouble is the dual-layered discs that Rhino decided to use. I've tried to play the CD side on three different CD players, including a brand new Onkyo and a brand new Sony. Both had trouble reading the disc and skipped on the last track. All the other Talking Head dual-discs had the same problem.

There is good news: in the UK, Rhino released all the Talking Heads records as two disc CD and DVD sets. I'd strongly recommend going to amazon.co.uk and getting those versions instead.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic TH album remastered but with poor authoring-doesn't play on all CD players/computers/can't upload to iPods 1 star format August 8, 2006

By Wayne Klein HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

"Fear of Music" is one of Talking Heads' best albums. This deluxe edition on the surface is a great way to hear the album. If you'll be listening to only the 5.1 side of the disc it will play just fine in computers and on DVD-Audio players. Conventional CD players may have a hard time recognizing the disc though. On the packaging it doesn't carry the compact disc logo. What that means is that the disc isn't blue book compatible and won't play in all players.

For example the CD portion wouldn't play on my computer. This made it impossible to listen to on my ipod (which is the primary way I listen to stuff on the road now). The 5.1 side plays just fine but you can't upload it to your iPod either. Why Warner didn't release this like this did overseas (1 remastered CD disc and the other a 5.1 remastered DVD-Audio disc) is beyond me. Certainly Dualdisc offers a lot of potential but many of these won't play on a lot of higher end CD players.

It's just something to be aware of when purchasing this. Rhino is not replacing the discs with remastered versions as they consider the problem to be minor. If you contact Dr. Rhino at Rhino's website they'll insist that you pay for shipping and handling when sending in the disc or you can try and return it to your local store or amazon.com. Until they work out all of the kinks with Dualdisc just be cautious.