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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) |
| 2. Crosseyed And Painless |
| 3. The Great Curve |
| 4. Once In A Lifetime |
| 5. House In Motion |
| 6. Seen And Not Seen |
| 7. Listening Wind |
| 8. The Overload |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Way back in 1980, the original wave of Talking Heads fans were pleasantly stunned to hear Remain in Light, produced and co-written by Brian Eno, on which Byrne and company are joined by guitar god Adrian Belew, and funk legends Bernie Worrell (keyboards) and Steven Scales (percussion), among others, for a fuller, funkier sound nobody imagined they had in them. The first three songs are long, layered, full-body dance parties, with incessantly repeated phrases (musical and lyrical), and increasingly catchy melodic hooks that won't let go for days. "Once in a Lifetime" was the big hit, but the rockingest track is the third, "The Great Curve", after which the songs get more linear and subdued. It's still great stuff, right through to the especially Eno-like droner, "The Overload", but the second half is maybe better to sleep to than dance to. Which is fine: after the exuberance of the first three songs, you'll need a little nap. --Dan Leone
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
If anyone needs to be persuaded why Talking Heads were just a great band, not merely a great new wave band or a great post-punk band but a band up there with anyone else, 'Remain In Light', their ineffably spooky and moving masterpiece, is surely the evidence required.
The band's singer and chief songwriter David Byrne was, by his own admission, suffering writer's block around 1980. He had just written the bulk of three increasingly brilliant and increasingly dark Heads albums - '77', 'More Songs About Buildings And Food' and 'Fear Of Music' - and was understandably a little burned out. Producer Brian Eno and he were forming a close friendship and working partnership that other members of the band, chiefly bass player Tina Weymouth, felt was becoming over-intellectual and elitist. The band had various goes at making this album, in various studios, and ended up splicing bits of jams together to make something like songs. Byrne and Eno wrote odd bits of lyrics to sing over the top, and session players like Adrian Belew and Jon Hassell were brought in to provide tasteful (or in Belew's case, fabulously untasteful) musical embellishment. Other people have tried the same method since. It has almost never worked.
Whatever the unhappy circumstances of its making, 'Remain In Light' was a combination of the Heads rhythm section's exceptionally funky drive, Byrne's worry and paranoia, Eno's benign world-music inclusivity, and some special extra ingredient that lifts the whole thing into a frankly mystical level of trancelike intensity and directness. The whole album is laced with gossamer-fine overdubs, so that every time you listen to it you hear something you hadn't heard before. It moves from the urgent and faintly menacing ('Crosseyed and Painless') to the devastatingly sad ('Listening Wind') to the trippily ecstatic ('Once In A Lifetime') with seemingly no strain.
It's one of my favourite albums of all time, as you can probably tell, and it contains my favourite recording of all time in the form of 'Once In A Lifetime', the record that takes the nausea out of existentialism and replaces it with something very like bliss.
Talking Heads made many fine recordings before and after, some as good as this, perhaps. Brian Eno never made anything as good ever again. This was also the recording in which the schism that would later tear the band apart first became evident. Check out the solo recordings that the various members made around this time (Byrne's 'The Catherine Wheel', Harrison's 'The Red and the Black', Weymouth's and Frantz's 'Tom Tom Club') and you will begin to see why, eight years later, Talking Heads would be no more.
They were fab. And this is their finest almost-hour.
The band's singer and chief songwriter David Byrne was, by his own admission, suffering writer's block around 1980. He had just written the bulk of three increasingly brilliant and increasingly dark Heads albums - '77', 'More Songs About Buildings And Food' and 'Fear Of Music' - and was understandably a little burned out. Producer Brian Eno and he were forming a close friendship and working partnership that other members of the band, chiefly bass player Tina Weymouth, felt was becoming over-intellectual and elitist. The band had various goes at making this album, in various studios, and ended up splicing bits of jams together to make something like songs. Byrne and Eno wrote odd bits of lyrics to sing over the top, and session players like Adrian Belew and Jon Hassell were brought in to provide tasteful (or in Belew's case, fabulously untasteful) musical embellishment. Other people have tried the same method since. It has almost never worked.
Whatever the unhappy circumstances of its making, 'Remain In Light' was a combination of the Heads rhythm section's exceptionally funky drive, Byrne's worry and paranoia, Eno's benign world-music inclusivity, and some special extra ingredient that lifts the whole thing into a frankly mystical level of trancelike intensity and directness. The whole album is laced with gossamer-fine overdubs, so that every time you listen to it you hear something you hadn't heard before. It moves from the urgent and faintly menacing ('Crosseyed and Painless') to the devastatingly sad ('Listening Wind') to the trippily ecstatic ('Once In A Lifetime') with seemingly no strain.
It's one of my favourite albums of all time, as you can probably tell, and it contains my favourite recording of all time in the form of 'Once In A Lifetime', the record that takes the nausea out of existentialism and replaces it with something very like bliss.
Talking Heads made many fine recordings before and after, some as good as this, perhaps. Brian Eno never made anything as good ever again. This was also the recording in which the schism that would later tear the band apart first became evident. Check out the solo recordings that the various members made around this time (Byrne's 'The Catherine Wheel', Harrison's 'The Red and the Black', Weymouth's and Frantz's 'Tom Tom Club') and you will begin to see why, eight years later, Talking Heads would be no more.
They were fab. And this is their finest almost-hour.
40 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
A fantastic re-mastering of this fine, fine record. I have heard this so many times I never thought I'd find something else but this remastering has brought new colour to this record.
This record spent 3 months on my turntable after it was released! I still return to it again and again. The first three tracks are one of the few musical experiences which have moved me to tears several times and if 'Crosseyed and Painless' and 'The Great Curve' don't inspire some sort of urge to dance.....you're probably dead!
'Remain in Light' is Talking Heads at their creative peak. 'Fear of Music' is also fantastic but where 'Fear of Music' is paranoid, prickly and taut, 'Remain in Light' is wreckless, wild and moving to all the horizons. Brian Eno is a massive influence here. Rumour has it, apart from Byrne, the other band members were incresingly resentful of his influence in the band but it's unlikely anything as wonderful as this record would have been created without his huge input.
The key track is 'The Great Curve'. The depth and construction of the vocal tracks is staggering. I've listened to it hundreds of times and still hear new patterns emerging. A real highlight in popular music.
What was originally the second side of the original LP is a different beast to the first three tracks. Again, the African influence is dominant but the themes are darker, such as resistance to Western domination, self doubt, questioning of life purpose and choices. It's a heady mix which fits as a wonderful counter-point to the head on mania and uplifting surges of the first side. All in all a wonderful record which everyone should hear.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I was always disappointed in the orignial CD releases of Talking Headss albums, however, I did have hope after the remastered editions of Stop Making Sense and The Name of this Band... were released. Now the waiting is over with these exceptional CD DVDA remastered editions. The CD of Remain In Light sounds wonderful and the bonus tracks are of genuine interest. The DVD audio sounds even better on a 5.1 system with some low key but beautiful graphics and the added bonus of videos. The live version of Once in a Lifetime is great. Seeing David Byrne in particular having such fun performing is heart warming and the seeming effortless ease of Adrian Belews guitar playing explains why he was in such demand at the time ( he was asked to and did join the bands of Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Talking Heads, The Tom Tom Club and King Crimson) and we can all hear the unique contribution he made in each case. I will no doubt be replacing the rest of my Talkiing Heads collection with thesewonderfuls quality and great values editions. Don'y hesitate buy it!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I beg to differ from the consensus
I'm kind of astonished to see that this seems, on this site, to be the most reviewed and at least among the highest rated of Talking Heads' records. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J
"Some people touch it ... but they can't hold on"
"Surround yourself with Talking Heads" says the sticker irrevocably fixed to the jewel case, but it remains one of the great albums by anyone. Period. Read more
Published 2 months ago by droflim
A must-have
There's not much to say here other than this is one of the all-time classic albums which everyone should own. Read more
Published 5 months ago by The Somerset Liberation Front
Review of Talking Heads CD
I purchase the above CD through Amazon but only opened the CD up yesterday; it was wrapped and unused. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Richard Galley
A genuine classic.
It's very easy to classify an album as "a classic", but this LP is one of the best ever released. Obviously, there isn't a duff moment on the entire record and the sequence of... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Paul Freestone
overrated
It's not that I dislike the Talking heads. I don't. Their first 2 albums were fun, I consider Little Creatures to be a minor masterpiece, and everything afterwards is interesting... Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2010 by Try4the sun
A meandering, percussive proto-World Music funk workout
On release in 1980 'Remain In Light' must have seemed very radical indeed. Years before World Music and sampling, here was an album of Africa-flavoured dancefloor exotica. Read more
Published on 2 April 2009 by Vauxhall1964
Exemplary remastering
As all the other reviewers testify the music can speak for itself. It seems as relevant today as on its release 28 years ago. Read more
Published on 16 Feb 2009 by Pensato
Best Talking Heads album
Being in the ownership of every studio album the Talking Heads have released, "Remain In Light" is my favourite of them all. Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2008 by J. Dixon
inspiring
This album cannot be faulted. A seminal example that of funk rock that is absolutely timeless and sends shivers up my spine at every listen... Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2008 by Dr. J. Rosen
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