Album Reviews

The phrase “auspicious debut” is often overused when discussing many an upstart band’s first album — but when it comes to Talking Heads, it’s a phrase that certainly fits the bill whenever you’re both discussing and listening to the fledgling NYC quartet’s first LP, September 1977’s Talking Heads: 77 (Sire). Well-ensconced in the downtown punk/new wave CBGB scene at a time that also begat the likes of Television, Ramones, Blondie, et al, Talking Heads were perceived as being somewhat different from their compatriots, perhaps because of their prominent art-school background — but perhaps not. Their overarching punk aesthetic was essentially the same, but the execution of it was entirely of the Heads’ own making.

Either way, Talking Heads: 77 set the table for a lively, deservedly acclaimed career that saw them morph from being labeled as “just” a critics-darling kind of act into achieving full-blown, mass-appreciation and mega-album sales success. By the time the Heads reached their initial peak with the live juggernaut that was September 1984’s Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads’ legacy was quite secure. (Sidenote: You can read our deep-dive combo review of last year’s 40th anniversary expanded 2LP SMS reissue here.)

Not only that, but Talking Heads LPs usually sounded really bleepin’ great too, a byproduct of their deft creativity mixed with top-shelf recording techniques, open-air arrangements, challenging instrumental choices, clever track layering, precision playing, and so much more. I could certainly spend a zillion words (give or take) dissecting all the respective aural merits of each of those heady Heads LPs, but today I will instead turn the AP reviewing lens onto their storied debut album in its newly, wonderfully expanded form. Officially released today, November 8, 2024, by Rhino, the Talking Heads: 77 – Super Deluxe Edition 4LP + 4 7-inch singles box set is a marvel for both ears and eyes alike.

What comprises this Super Deluxe Edition warrants full delineation before any further discussion. The 77 box consists of four black vinyl standard-weight LPs in plastic-lined black inner sleeves plus four 7-inch singles, all of it housed in a sturdy, lift-off-lid box. They’re accompanied by an 80-page hardcover book that offers scores of previously unseen photos, band fliers, hand-drawn artwork, and detailed liner notes courtesy each bandmember. Those liners appear in this exact order: 1) bassist Martina Weymouth (yep, that’s her full first name, just as it appears in the original credits), 2) drummer/percussionist Chris Frantz, 3) keyboardist/guitarist/background vocalist Jerry Harrison, and 4) vocalist/guitarist David Byrne, in addition to studio notes from their like-minded recording engineer Ed Stasium, who also deigns to put some long-festering recording-related nonsense to full rest. This is how liners should be done. All five of them (i.e., the Heads plus Stasium) share the degree of technical minutiae, gear choices, and recording details that properly inform why we’re hearing what we’re hearing on Talking Heads: 77, and they’re worth reading start to finish so you can unlock those details all on your own.

LP1 is the original album in its rightful AAA form, as remastered from the original master tapes. LP2 holds 12 rare and previously unreleased demos and outtakes, including the well-sought-after “Psycho Killer (Acoustic Version)” that features Arthur Russell on cello. Meanwhile, LPs 3&4 are subtitled Live at CBGB, New York, NY, Oct. 10, 1977, and they, as the title obviously delineates, hold 13 crucial, of-era live recordings. Note that LPs 3&4 — both of which playback at 45rpm, while the first two LPs in the set are at the standard 33⅓ — are currently only available in the box set. (More on all that in a bit.) The four 7-inch singles are set in opposing-gatefold half-sleeves, two with black-and-white band images of the band on their covers, and the other two sporting conceptual art. The 45s are indeed fun spins when you have the time to do so (as I did by using my 1oz CR9100A-SP aluminum Sgt. Pepper adapter), but all eight of their tracks are also on the main LPs anyway.

The Talking Heads: 77 box set DNA stats are these, all of which have been exclusively and directly confirmed to AP by the Heads’ official PR team. The vinyl was pressed at GZ in the Czech Republic. Joe Nino-Hernes at Sterling Sound cut the lacquers (but also note that the credits say the box set was “mastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound”). The first, original LP is, as noted earlier, AAA, while the remaining 3LPs have been sourced from digital files (not uncommon for box sets these days, mind you — but in no way is that choice a dealbreaker here in the least). The Talking Heads: 77 – Super Deluxe Edition box set has an SRP of $149.98, and it is currently only available from two places: 1) the official Talking Heads store, and 2) at Rhino.com. To order your copy, you can go to the Heads store here, or go to the Rhino.com store here.

If that SRP is currently too rich for your bankbook, a separate 2LP edition of Talking Heads: 77 featuring the main AAA LP along with the rarities disc is available at Music Direct for $34.99, and it can be purchased via this link, or via the MD link graphic near the end of this review. (There’s also word of a similarly priced, limited green-vinyl edition of the same 77 2LP edition available at Barnes & Noble.)

And now, let’s get into the music (sans any fear). The AAA wonder that is LP1 is a truly refreshing listen — especially considering my original 1977 Talking Heads: 77 Sire LP is a bit too worn out to spin for critical evaluation at this point (even after my Record Doctor’ing it a few times), so I instead pulled out the 2020 Sire repress that was cut by Kevin Gray (a.k.a. KPG@ATM, as seen in the runout groove) to do some relative A/B’ing. Although that 2020 repress is indeed a good listen on its own, it sounds a bit brighter and more compressed than the new 2024 AAA Rhino version does to me. Those differences were in immediate evidence on the opening track, “Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town” (LP1, Side I, Track 1), such as with the character of Frantz’s steel-pan playing that appears here and there on the choruses. Weymouth’s bass lines and the jangly guitars from Byrne and Harrison on “Uh-Oh” were much, much fuller and clearer on the 2024 edition.

Right from the get-go, “New Feeling” (LP1, Side I, Track 2) proved itself to be a strong template for how future Heads and King Crimson guitar maestro Adrian Belew’s angular style of composing and riffing emerged from his fretboards ’n’ fingers. On the 2024 LP, Harrison and Byrne’s guitars on this track are spread wide across the soundstage as they are on most of the album proper, in turn leaving Byrne plenty of room down the middle to sing mostly unencumbered by other instrumentation. Frantz’s drums and Weymouth’s bass serve as backline support — just as they should (and just as the rhythm section originally intended).

Byrne’s quirky, stark admissions on “No Compassion” (LP1, Side I, Track 6) are as emboldened as ever, and the track kicks into even higher gear once Frantz propels it into that four-on-the-floor shuffle mode of his (a skill he put to even more perfect use on later albums like September 1986’s True Stories, on Sire). If you’re not familiar with this cut, I suspect you’ll get much pleasure from the “slight return” sections (plural!) towards the end. (“Here we go again!”)

And then, we have Side 2. The sunny — and somewhat, er, ironic/prescient — nature of “Don’t Worry About the Government” (LP1, Side II, Track 2) now feels even more like the kissing-cousin to “(Nothing But) Flowers” on March 1988’s Naked on Fly/Sire with each passing day. The string resonance you’ll hear at the outset and other various points in this song is all just, well, beautiful to behold/behear.

Once the linchpin “Psycho Killer” (LP1, Side II, Track 4) commenced, I experienced instant chills, as Weymouth’s opening bass figure (times two, that is), Frantz’s kick, and the abbreviated guitar line snippet collectively evoked a sense of space in this track that I had never quite connected with before to such a degree. The song’s pin-drop pre-tension was pure and palpable, and I can confidently say this is the best I’ve ever heard of “Psycho Killer” on vinyl, immediately clearing away years of car-radio-compressed sense memories that likely clouded my prior LP-spinning love of it. The more aggro “Pulled Up” (LP1, Side II, Track 5), with its differing degrees of muscular guitar riffage behind the repeated title phrase and hard-strummed accents during the chorus, continued its reign of bringing the album to a proper close.

LP2, which offers an even-dozen rarities and alternate takes, is quite a treat unto itself, even if just to have all these desired cuts in one place, finally. “Sugar on My Tongue” (LP2, Side 1, Track 1) opens like a lost Who track, circa 1965 — and it accurately reflects the vibe of its two-track session capturing — while “Love –> Building on Fire” (LP2, Side 1, Track 3) whistles along sweetly, with Byrne’s lead vocal commencing more in the center left than he appears on most of the other songs here. “Psycho Killer (Acoustic Version)” (LP2, Side 1, Track 5) features Arthur Russell’s aforementioned cello accents and Byrne’s still-gestating lead-vocal inflections, though the inherent anxiety as buoyed by the volume swells of those recurrent cello stabs fuels additional drama, serving as yet another layer of the song’s unfolding onion appeal, as it were. The previously unreleased “Pulled Up (Alternate ‘Pop’ Version)” (LP2, Side 2, Track 1) proves why the album version was ultimately chosen since that one has a little more grit to it. (Nice to have this mix in hand, nonetheless.)

You can also hear how “First Week/Last Week. . . Carefree (Acoustic Version)” (LP2, Side 2, Track 3) is just a few clicks away from “being there,” though it’s always nice to get Byrne working through his alternate “ay-yi-yi-yi” and other yelping iterations. Finally, is it just me, or is Frantz’s opening to “Psycho Killer (Alternate Version)” (LP2, Side 2, Track 5) a precursor of sorts to the indelible, insistent beat of The White Stripes’ perennial sports-stadium favorite from 2003, “Seven Nation Army”?

And then, ahhhh — it’s time for the 13-track, 45rpm double-live album on LPs 3&4, subtitled Live at CBGB, New York, NY, Oct. 10, 1977 and thankfully helmed and recorded by Ed Stasium. What an in-the-moment historical document this set genuinely is. “The name of this band is Talking Heads” notes a subdued Byrne at the outset, before he explains to the CB’s crowd how the band might have to stop the proceedings occasionally so that “they can change the reels on the tape machine” for the “radio chain.” But then, the instant the Heads go into “Love –> Building on Fire” (LP3, Side 1, Track 1), you just feel the raw, unbridled energy of a band already firing on all collective cylinders. If you’ve ever had the privilege of seeing any gigs at CBGB back in the day like I did, there’s nothing quite like being in that room and seeing/hearing magic happen literally on the spot — which is what I felt when I saw artists like Radiohead, The Posies, and The Tragically Hip play sets there in the latter-heyday of the early/mid-1990s — but these two LPs are one of the best documents of the club’s late-1970s heyday in full repose.

You’ll also get a kick out of the slightly-too-fast cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River” (LP3, Side 1, Track 4), a song that eventually gets reworked for inclusion on the Heads’ July 1978 sophomore LP on Sire, More Songs About Buildings and Food, and the unbridled joy of their powering through “New Feeling” (LP3, Side 2, Track 2), the warble-riffic “No Compassion” (LP3, Side 3, Track 1), and the gritty closer, “Stay Hungry” (LP4, Side 4, Track 3).

As far as my ratings for the Talking Heads: 77 – Super Deluxe Edition box set go, the Music gets an unabashed 10, technically a rounded-up aggregate of it being a full 10 for the core AAA album itself combined with a decimal-point(ish) roundup of alternating 9 and 9.5 ratings for the bonus and live material. The Sound gets a cumulative 9.5, as the AAA LP is a 10.5 (and it could even eventually become a full 11 at some point, the more I listen to and love it), while the rarities and live material get a composite roundup of their own 9 and 9.5 tallies, mainly due to the digital sourcing — which, to be honest, is about as good as D-to-A can be. Given how clean the original material is to begin with, it shouldn’t be all that surprising.

You know, it takes a lot of time to push away the nonsense, and just listen. And there’s certainly no need to run, run, run away from this one, folks, for Talking Heads: 77 – Super Deluxe Edition is the kind of aural palate-cleansing kind of vinyl listening you’ll want to return to again and again. One can only hope the rest of the Heads heavenly catalog gets similar top-notch expanded multi-LP reissue treatment as the days continue to pull up.

TALKING HEADS
TALKING HEADS: 77 – SUPER DELUXE EDITION BOX SET
4LPs + 4 7-inch singles (Sire/Rhino)

LP1: Original Album (AAA)

LP1, Side I
1. Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town
2. New Feeling
3. Tentative Decisions
4. Happy Day
5. Who Is It?
6. No Compassion

LP1, Side II
1. The Book I Read
2. Don’t Worry About The Government
3. First Week/Last Week. . . Carefree
4. Psycho Killer
5. Pulled Up

LP2: Rarities

LP 2, Side 1
1. Sugar On My Tongue
2. I Want To Live
3. Love –> Building On Fire
4. I Wish You Wouldn’t Say That
5. Psycho Killer (Acoustic Version)
6. Uh-Oh Love Comes to Town (Alternate “Pop” Version)
7. New Feeling (Alternate “Pop” Version)

LP2, Side 2
1. Pulled Up (Alternate “Pop” Version)**
2. Stay Hungry (1977 Version)
3. First Week/Last Week… Carefree (Acoustic Version)
4. I Feel It in My Heart
5. Psycho Killer (Alternate Version)**

LP3 & LP4: Live at CBGB, New York, NY, Oct. 10, 1977**

LP3, Side 1
1. Love –> Building On Fire
2. Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town
3. Don’t Worry About The Government
4. Take Me To The River

LP3, Side 2
1. The Book I Read
2. New Feeling
3. A Clean Break (Let’s Work)

LP4, Side 3
1. No Compassion
2. Thank You For Sending Me An Angel
3. Who Is It?

LP4, Side 4
1. Pulled Up
2. Psycho Killer
3. Stay Hungry

**Previously unreleased

7-INCHES

7-Inch No. 1: Love –> Building On Fire
Side A, Track 1. Love –> Building On Fire
Side B, Track 1. New Feeling [2024 Remaster]

7-Inch No. 2: Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town
Side A, Track 1. Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town
Side B, Track 1. I Wish You Wouldn’t Say That

7-Inch No. 3: Psycho Killer
Side A, Track 1. Psycho Killer
Side B, Track 1. Psycho Killer (Acoustic Version)

7-Inch No. 4: Pulled Up
Side A, Track 1. Pulled Up
Side B, Track 1. Don’t Worry About The Government

TALKING HEADS
TALKING HEADS: 77
2LP (Sire/Rhino)

LP1: Original Album (AAA)

LP1, Side I
1. Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town
2. New Feeling
3. Tentative Decisions
4. Happy Day
5. Who Is It?
6. No Compassion

LP1, Side II
1. The Book I Read
2. Don’t Worry About The Government
3. First Week/Last Week. . . Carefree
4. Psycho Killer
5. Pulled Up

LP2: Rarities

LP 2, Side 1
1. Sugar on My Tongue
2. I Want To Live
3. Love –> Building On Fire
4. I Wish You Wouldn’t Say That
5. Psycho Killer (Acoustic Version)
6. Uh-Oh Love Comes to Town (Alternate “Pop” Version)
7. New Feeling (Alternate “Pop” Version)

LP2, Side 2
1. Pulled Up (Alternate “Pop” Version)**
2. Stay Hungry (1977 Version)
3. First Week/Last Week. . . Carefree (Acoustic Version)
4. I Feel It in My Heart
5. Psycho Killer (Alternate Version)**

**Previously unreleased