Art Rock · New Wave
Four friends from art school who turned New York’s underground into the funkiest idea in rock.
The biography
Talking Heads formed in New York City in 1975. David Byrne played guitar and sang, Chris Frantz played drums, and Tina Weymouth played bass; the three had met at the Rhode Island School of Design and shared a loft in New York, where they debuted at the CBGB club in June 1975, opening for the Ramones. Jerry Harrison — keyboards and guitar, formerly of Jonathan Richman’s Modern Lovers — joined in 1977, completing the classic lineup.
Their debut album, Talking Heads: 77 (1977), introduced Byrne’s nervous, brilliant songwriting with “Psycho Killer.” Then came three albums made with producer Brian Eno — More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980). The last of those was built from African polyrhythms, tape loops, and an expanded lineup of players, and it gave the band its signature song, “Once in a Lifetime.”
Speaking in Tongues (1983) brought their first American top 10 single, “Burning Down the House.” Stop Making Sense (1984), the concert film directed by Jonathan Demme, is widely called the greatest concert film ever made. Little Creatures (1985) gave them “And She Was” and “Road to Nowhere”; True Stories (1986) collected songs from Byrne’s film of the same name, and Naked (1988) was their final studio album.
The band stopped working together around the turn of the 1990s. Frantz and Weymouth’s side project Tom Tom Club had already scored with “Genius of Love” (1981), and Byrne built a wide-ranging solo career in music and film. Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, reuniting on stage one more time — four art-school friends, still the funkiest idea in rock.