response 6 of 46:

Oct 25 21:48 UTC 1999

  No, no, no!  Not "Sand in the Vaseline"..  It omits so much *great* stuff
  and presents the rest out of context, which really does change the way you
  hear it.

  My personal favorite album is "Remain in Light" but I could honestly 
  recommend starting with any of the albums up to (but not including)
  True Stories.

  They basically break down as follows:

    Talking Heads 77 -- unpolished experimental pop.  harsher sound.
    not "punk" by a long stretch, but influenced by the New York scene
    around whose periphery they floated..

    More Songs About Buildings and Food -- great, quirky pop album
    full of amusing songs about odd topics.  sound is a little more
    polished but still discernibly "early period"

    Fear of Music -- big change for this album, as they team with producer
    Brian Eno and begin experimenting with African rhythms.  complex,
    polyrhythmic, and highly memorable.

    Remain in Light -- in my opinion, their masterwork.  the same polrhythms
    that appeared in "Fear of Music" but more fully developed.  the first
    half of the album is brilliant, high-energy, and infectiously funky.
    the second half shifts pace considerably and has a whold different feel
    to it -- unfortunately this separation worked a lot better when they
    were different sides of an LP, but both halves are great.

    Speaking in Tongues -- more polished, mature sound marks the band's
    growing influence and popularity.  source of the first (and biggest)
    mainstream radio hit, "Burning Down the House".  varies considerably
    from eminently-dancable high-energy tracks like "Burning.." to 
    tender bits like "Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place)"

    Little Creatures -- my second favorite after "Remain in Light"
    very polished pop, substantially slicker than earlier releases, but
    still featuring the quirky lyrics and complex rhythms that are the
    band's trademark.

    Stop Making Sense -- (chronologically comes before "Little Creatures",
    I think..)  Excellent live album from the four Los Angeles performances
    that were filmed for the movie.  Heavy on material from "Speaking In 
    Tongues" and "More Songs About Buildings and Food"

  Related, and also highly recommended:

    David Byrne --  "The Catherine Wheel"  Byrne and choreographer Twyla
    Tharp teamed to do a ballet (!)   Although uncredited in the title,
    Brian Eno and Adrian Belew's influences can be heard all throughout
    this album as well.

    David Byrne and Brian Eno -- "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts".  Byrne
    and Eno take found sound samples and set them to really funky music.
    Works incredibly well..

response 8 of 46:

Oct 26 00:48 UTC 1999

"More Songs about Buildings and Food" is also Eno produced, by the way.  The
three eno albums (I think) are the best intros to Talking Heads.  How do you
all like solo Byrne, by the way?

response 10 of 46:

Oct 26 00:51 UTC 1999

(8 slipped in... hi Justin, and welcome to the music conference!)

response 12 of 46:

Oct 26 15:44 UTC 1999

Re #6: Mike, you just summed up why I don't like "Best of..." collections,
but I still think "Sand in the Vaseline" is better than most.

response 14 of 46:

Oct 26 16:19 UTC 1999

  Jerry Harrison's   "Casual Gods"

  [best left unmentioned, imho..]

response 16 of 46:

Oct 26 19:20 UTC 1999

Mike in resp:3 :: sorry for being misinformed about the various 
TRUE STORIES discs.  I never did get to see the movie.
 
Jerry Harrison's first solo album, from around the same time as everyone
else in the band was doing side projects, was THE RED AND THE BLACK.
I'd be surprised if it had ever been issued on CD.  Harrison was also 
in an early version of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, before
his days in Talking Heads.
 
I picked up the new 16-track CD of STOP MAKING SENSE last night.
To the best of my feeble recollection, it has all of the songs from 
the movie.  It have have all of the performances from the movie; if 
so, the band introduction at the end of "Take Me To The River" was 
edited out.  I'm annoyed that what appears to be canned applause 
has been bled over the beginning of each track; this wasn't there in 
the 1984 edition.  
 
I'm sure that the 1984 edition has a different recording of "Psycho Killer,"
a different one than used in the film.  I don't think it's just variations
in editing.
 
Ah, I did a little web searching and found an interesting band site:
            http://talking-heads.net/th_sms99.html
This says that "This Must Be The Place" will be issued as a single, with
the three extra tracks from the video as bonus tracks.  Have to look for 
that...

response 20 of 46:

Oct 27 23:06 UTC 1999

  I agree that it's not their most accessible album, but I believe it's
  one of their best.  I suppose I'd direct a neophyte to choose either of
  the albums that bracketed it, though ("More Songs About Buildings and Food"
  or "Remain in Light")

  I dragged out my copy of "Sand in the Vaseline" to check out what had
  and hadn't been included and it reaffirmed my opinion that although it's
  a better cover of the band's career than any other single recording it
  has some major flaws as a starting point.  In my opinion:

    1) the track selection isn't that good..  maybe I'm just bitter
       because they left off my very favorite track, "The Great Curve",
       but as far as I can tell they included no more than three tracks
       from any single album and only two from "Remain in Light"..
       I'm somewhat mystified by the inclusion of "Swamp" as one of the
       three tracks from "Speaking In Tongues" -- I can think of several
       more deserving choices. 

    2) the inclusion of the hard-to-find and never-previously-released
       tracks makes the collection attractive to the completist but most
       of them (out of seven or eight tracks) are definitely b-grade
       material compared to the things that were left off to make room
       for them.

  Supposing that you can get two of the original albums for not much more
  than the double-CD collection, I think that's the way to go..

response 22 of 46:

Nov 1 23:00 UTC 1999

I have the information about this weekend's showing of STOP MAKING SENSE
in East Lansing.  The film is showing in one of the Wells Hall auditoriums
at 7 & 9:15 pm, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, November 5-7.
 
Unless Wells Hall soundsystems have been upgraded in the ten years since
I last saw a movie there, this won't compare to the Michigan Theatre
experience, but it is probably better than video.

response 24 of 46:

Nov 2 23:23 UTC 1999

  Early 80s with a spoken word piece?  Wow, that rings *no* bells whatsoever..

response 26 of 46:

Nov 3 00:03 UTC 1999

that's it...i was just lissening to THe Knee Plays
a cupple of months ago.

response 28 of 46:

Nov 7 16:07 UTC 1999

I can't remember if it was mentioned here, but "Take Me to The River" is
by Al Green and the original is very R&B.