Talking Heads

Talking Heads emerged from New York’s mid-1970s punk scene with a sound that joined punk’s economy to art rock, funk and world-music influences. Formed in 1975, the band comprised David Byrne on lead vocals and guitar, Chris Frantz on drums, Tina Weymouth on bass, and guitarist and keyboardist Jerry Harrison. Byrne, Frantz and Weymouth had met as freshmen at the Rhode Island School of Design, where Byrne and Frantz played together in the Artistics before the trio moved to New York and became Talking Heads.

After joining the city’s punk circuit and adding Harrison, Talking Heads signed with Sire Records in 1976. Their debut, Talking Heads: 77, arrived the next year to positive reviews. The group then began a three-album collaboration with British producer Brian Eno: More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979) and Remain in Light (1980). Those records brought their art-school approach into contact with the rhythmic influence of Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. From the early 1980s onward, their recordings and concerts also drew on an expanded ensemble that included Adrian Belew, Bernie Worrell, Nona Hendryx and Busta Jones.

The band reached its commercial high point with “Burning Down the House,” a U.S. Top 10 hit from 1983’s Speaking in Tongues. The following year brought Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme’s concert film, for which the live group included Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. The film is sometimes regarded as the greatest concert film of all time. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They followed it with the soundtrack to Byrne’s film True Stories in 1986 and the worldbeat-influenced Naked in 1988.

Byrne left the band in 1991. Frantz, Weymouth and Harrison briefly performed as Shrunken Heads, then released No Talking, Just Head in 1996 as the Heads, with various singers, before disbanding permanently. Talking Heads’ catalogue later received repeated institutional recognition: four of their albums appeared on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, while “Psycho Killer,” “Life During Wartime” and “Once in a Lifetime” were named among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2011, Rolling Stone ranked the band at number 100 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.