Customer Reviews

Talking Heads: True Stories

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Variously described as punk rock, art rock, alternative rock, and new wave, The Talking Heads (David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth) originally formed in 1974 and became one of many cutting-edge bands to emerge from New York's legendary CBGB'S, the proving ground of such diverse acts as Patti Smith, Blondie, Television, and Mink DeVille. By the late 1970s and early 1980s the band was critically lauded, extremely influential, and commercially profitable--but creative differences began to divide the members. The 1986 TRUE STORIES would be among the band's last recordings.

Fans of the band frequently savage TRUE STORIES as "not a real Talking Heads recording." There's some truth to this: it was essentially a David Byrne project, with songs written for the film of the same name. But that aside, much of the complaint seems to arise from the fact that the songs were written to serve a film rather than the band's more typical style. TRUE STORIES is not a stylistically cohesive release in the same sense as, say, SPEAKING IN TONGUES; it bounces from funky to country-inflected to bluesy. Certainly many of the cuts are more pop-inflected than what Talking Heads usually did. But that isn't to say that they do them badly.

TRUE STORIES contains a lot knock-outs. It opens with the fairly hard-rocker "Love For Sale," a commentary on consumerism and the television culture, as memorable and jolting as the best the band ever did. There follows a series of songs that range from Gospel hysteria to Voodoo chants to pop fun. But the real departure in style is the distinctly country-western edge that most of the selections seem to possess. It is perhaps most noticeable in "People Like Us" and "City of Dreams," both of which have a plantive quality evocative of open, empty spaces. It is also worth noting that while Talking Heads were always extremely witty and often ironic in terms of lyrics and music, the music for the film TRUE STORIES is flatly, overtly satirical--a fact that seems to escape most people who dislike this particular recording.

The "DualDisc" release has pluses and minuses. The CD side includes every cut from the original release as well as bonus tracks: an extended mix of "Wild, Wild Life" (which is not greatly inspired) and "Papa Legba" as performed by Pops Staples and "Radio Head" as performed by Tito Larriva in the actual film. The DVD side offers the original album in 5.1 surround sound, a photo gallery, and vides of "Wild Wild Life" and "Love For Sale." But frankly, the DualDisc format is a royal pain in the backside. It plays readily enough on most DVD players, on most computer systems, and my Bose accepts the CD side without complaint. But don't hold your breath on being able to get the CD side to play on the average boom box: it simply won't play.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I first got into the Talking Heads at 14, and I'm 24 now, so you can imagine with the music scene the way it was in 1997 that middle school bullies would find the idea of a fellow student into the music from "I Love The 80's" ripe for the pickin'. I was actually embarrassed of this band (and most other 80's bands) and put them away until I got to college and realized what I'd been missing. But this stands as the first Talking Heads record I got, so I saw the previous reviews and decided to take a stand for this, my sentimental favorite for Talking Heads as a group.

This entire project (book, film, and record) was years ahead of its time. The newest movie that I can think would fit into this mold would be "A Mighty Wind," down to the structure, characters, and even financial backers (Karen Murphy worked on both films). I read on another site that this particular album should never had existed, but was made (in 5 days!) to appease the financiers for the flick. For five days' worth of work, this is admittedly a pretty damn fine record. Very 80's, of course, but as with the entirety of the Heads' catalog the production techniques date the recordings instantly. This is without a doubt the POPPIEST that the Heads have ever sounded in the studio, but the songs are still quite good (especially when compared to everything else that hit the Top 40 in 1986). It's not their best (hell, for me nothing in the studio touches either one of the recently expanded live albums), and most people don't like this one because of the (deserved) legacy left behind by the preceding six records. But as a sentimental favorite to this fan, cut this one some slack. As David himself says at the end of "The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads," "Once again, you can dance if you want to." And really, what's so wrong with a mid-80's dance record by people who actually know how to make one?

(Further recommended listening: check out the artist rosters for Sire, Slash, Epitaph and Virgin Records from 1976 to 1996.)

Well, this seams to be one of those albums that divides fans. Personally I like it. It has a good number of songs that are a bit 'take it or leave it', but there's a lot of fun songs too - both lyrically and musically. The 'extended version' of the album certainly bumps this up from a 3 to a 4 star experience for me. The original from the movie version of 'Papa Legba' and 'Radio Head' are particularly great additions to the original work. No doubt this album isn't Talking Heads at their best, but it's good fun and all the bonus stuff with this dual disc version etc. makes it worthwhile for for me and will be for many THeads fans.

This is probably not an essential album if you want to jump into being a Talking Heads fan. Don't get me wrong there are some fabulous tracks on here, especially the Dual Disc, like Papa Legba and City of Dreams;and the film True Stories is terrific but this album does not necessarily mesh with the rest of Talking Heads' discography. These songs are taken completely out of context and that's what makes it hard to praise.

If you like a few of the Talking head's hits and you're thinking about picking up an album but dont know where to begin. Begin here. This is a good place to start with solid songs you will not hear on the radio.

I bought "True Stories" on cassette tape when it was released in September 1986. I didn't see the film until a few years later. I remember liking this album a lot back then, but now I see it's not as good as their earlier work. Yet, there are several songs I still like such as "Love For Sale", "Hey Now", "Papa Legba", "Wild Wild Life", "Radio Head" and "City Of Dreams". The digital remastering is excellent and the cd side has an extended version of "Wild Wild Life" (so did the original cd version of this album) that is forgettable. I can't say I really enjoy the Pop Staples version of "Papa Legba", and the same goes for Tito Larriva's version of "Radio Head".

Since this album is simplistic in its approach, the dvd 5.1 mix doesn't really do anything for me. I find it's much better in stereo on the cd side. Two videos are included, "Wild Wild Life" and "Love For Sale" which are both good. There's also a 5.1 mix of Pop Staples' version of "Papa Legba" which is wasted space. The booklet comes with no lyrics and there's a brief blurb from Jerry Harrison about the remastering of this album.

I don't know if my disc is defective, but on the dvd side, it seems that the first few seconds of "Love For Sale" have been cut off. It sounds like a disc mastering error. I wonder if anyone else has this same problem with their disc?

Overall, a good album from the Heads, but not great.

this medicore cd is helped by the 5.1 sound bringing it up from a 3 to a 4

The Talking Heads, after producing a handful of essential albums, seemed to spend the tail end of their career fumbling a bit for direction, after the stripped back and ultimately unsatisfying "Little Creatures", they recorded a series of pieces David Byrne wrote for a movie called "True Stories" (that had already been recorded by different artists). The net result is an album that quite frankly sounds and feels nothing like a Talking Heads album and falls far short of delivering the goods.


Essentially, the album bounces between one style and another, from fierce blues-based rock ("Love For Sale") to '50s pop ("People Like Us") to a sort of, for lack of better term, "world music" vibe ("Papa Legba"). The pieces themselves aren't bad, but it feels like this is the wrong band to be executing them and the performances pretty much limp along. A couple of the pieces are worth a listen (hit single "Wild Wild Life" is catchy and exciting, "Dream Operator" works out to be an intriguing pop piece), but by and large, the album muddles along and doesn't really go anywhere.

This dualdisc reissue provides remastered sound on the both the stereo/CD side and the 5.1/DVD sound and quite simply, it sounds fantastic. Both sides are augmented by bonus tracks-- the CD side has an unnecessary (and irritating) extended mix of "Wild Wild Life" and two performances from the movie (the same backing track with a different vocalist). The DVD side has one of the movie versions and a pair of music videos.

The Talking Heads were a band that accomplished a lot in a short amount of time and never seemed to recover after reaching critical mass. "True Stories" is probably as good an example of this as anything else. Newcomers should stick with their earlier albums ("Remain in Light" is probably as good a place as any) before pursuing something like "True Stories".

There's no getting around the fact that 1986 was one of the single worst years in popular
music/popular culture, and one of the final nails in the alternative coffin of New Wave was
the release of this album. The publicity images of the band in yuppie regalia was a lame
attempt at irony, yet the TRUE STORIES album itself is far more contradictory to the
"Talking Heads" ethos than their late-period image suggested. There is something rotten
at work here, from the stiff-rock opener "Love for Sale" to the made-for-MTV schmaltz of
"Wild Wild Life" to the brain-dead closer "City of Dreams." This from the same guy who
wrote "The Big Country," "Heaven," and "The Overload"? What the?!?? The best that can be said is that a couple of the songs are "nice."
Little Creatures was passable, but it signaled an uneasy turn for the band, from
uncompromising art rock darlings to mediocre oddities left spinning in the perpetual video
rotation. Naked, while an uneven album, salvaged a good deal of what was great about
the edgy collaboration between Byrne and /Weymouth/Harrison/Frantz, a masterful multi-
rhythmic mixture of solid percussive drive and head injury quirk. But in between Stop
Making Sense and their swan song, this band was effectively lost in the wilderness.

The original soundtrack recording by "various artists" is wonderful, and since my cassette wore out I haven't been able to find it on DVD. I accidentally got the Talking Heads version and it's not interesting at all.