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Remain in Light is the last great Talking Heads album. After this album, Talking Heads became a joke. This album follows Talking Heads best album ever, Fear Of Music, and their second best album More Songs About Buildings and Food. If I had to rate Remain In Light, I'd say it was TH's 4th best album, just behind their debut album, Talking Heads '77. This one is another Brian Eno produced album, and it's quite experimental. This was recorded during the period when the Heads were exploring a lot of African tribal rhythms. There's really not a bad track on the album. The most well known and most played on the radio, etc. song on the album is Once In A Lifetime. This was actually TH's first breakout song. The rest of the album tends to be a little more experimental than this particular track for the more part, so if you're expecting the whole album to sound like Lifetime, you might be disappointed. There are a lot of interesting rhythms and sonic studio trickery throughout the album. Progressive/Alternative guitarist Adrian Belew is featured throughout this album, creating all sorts of unusual sounds on guitar, as he's well known for. Belew was a perfect compliment for this type of songwriting and production. If you are a fan of later Head's (song such as Burning Down The House, Girlfriend Is Better, Road To Nowhere, etc), then this is probably not the album for you...because the Heads had not become "silly" so much yet, as they would on later albums. This is thinking man's (and woman's) music. It's not your average pop-fare...save for the one track, Once In A Lifetime, which probably shouldn't have ever made it on pop radio, yet it's an excellent song, so it deserves to...but again that's the conundrum. If you like earlier Heads songs such as Psycho Killer, Life During Wartime, Take Me To The River, Air, Memories Can't Wait, etc...then you should probably enjoy Remain In Light. I recommend anyone to buy the first 4 TH albums, and leave the rest alone.Read full review
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Remain In Light by the Talking Heads has received much critical praise since its release in 1980, and deservedly so. This would be the third and final album with Brian Eno acting as producer. The interesting thing about this is the background leading up to this album and the style of it. In 1977, Eno released his final pop album entitled Before and After Science. On it, he incoporates some polyrythm, African influenced tracks and some Talking Heads-esque tracks. One of the tracks is King's Lead Hat which is an anagram for Talking Heads. This track, as well as some of the others, mimic the Talking Heads style. Eno did this in order to coax the Talking Heads into letting him produce their albums. Well, his wish was granted, but it took three albums to really get them into the African-influenced mold that Eno had invisioned for them. How and why Eno had this idea is beyond me, but it worked. All of the songs on Remain in Light are very rythm-oriented with not much happening in the way of chord changes or melodies. Almost all of the melodies are carried by the voices laid over almost religious adherence to the driving beats. The "solos" in these songs are very abstract and avante garde, making them very interesting. The songs range from the scary fast The Great Curve, to the slow and haunting Listening Wind. Of course, most people have heard the song Once in a Lifetime, which is not exactly the most representative song from the album, but never the less a great song. For me, the stand out tracks are Crosseyed and Painless, Houses in Motion, and Seen And Not Seen. Really all of the album is great, and if you like the Talking Heads, New Wave, African polyrythms, Brian Eno, or just adventurous music, then you will definitely not go wrong with purchasing this album.Read full review
This is one of the earliest collaborations between the Mastermind of the Talking Heads, David Byrne, and the artist known as Brian Eno. Together they produced one of the best albums of our time, Remain in Light. Backed by the wonderful percussive sounds of Tina Weymouth and Chris Franz (Tom Tom Club), David Byrne goes far beyond himself in kicking out a thoughtful yet totally danceable album. Let's not forget the syntho- keybords of jerry Harrison (who by the way has a couple of really hot albums of his own "the Red and the Black" and "Casual Gods"). I recommend this album very highly. Go and Buy It Now!
This came out in 80' and it stands as one of the best rock albums from that decade. It's somewhat impossible to describe. Let's just say if you mixed the seemingly incongruous music styles of Velvet Underground, Kraftwork, Parliament Funkadellic, King Crimson with the impenetrable lyric style of Yes and Steely Dan you might start to come close to a description. Adventurous art rock at it's best in the decade when it was basically killed off. At times it's danceable art rock, there's a rare combination
Amazing sound restoration with great preservation of the album's original production. This is essential David Byrne and crew at their avante guard best.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
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