Great album by a great band. Listen to it occasionally and appreciate it anew each time. One band I'd loved to have seen but never did. Ah well...
I haven't heard the original LP, but the Rhino CD is very digitally compressed. I'm sure the original LP sounds better.
As great as Stop Making Sense is, I always felt it unfairly eclipsed this album. I still have my original vinyl. A truly great album!
Prior to late in the CD era, this was a rare find. I used to buy every OG copy I encountered (which was not that often) to give to friends. My first copy was the double-length cassette (and I remember my jaw dropping when I saw it in the racks).
I just played this LP the other week - neighbours were away, no-one else in the house and I played it at live music volume. My Icon 845 Monoblocks can go very loud if needed. Anyway, it was a stunning experience especially sides 3 and 4. What a band they had then - and when they kicked into "Take Me To The River" i thought to myself this is why I do this...
Definitely the double LP. Both are essential, though. The LP for the sound quality and conciseness. The CD for the volume of material.
The expanded line up for the Remain in Light tour are one of the greatest live bands ever in my little world. Well captured on this album.
Let's not forget the album has A Clean Break. A great song not on any studio album. I love the album and CD. Houses in Motion is incredible.
I love the album. Prior to TNOTBITH's release, we had the Warner Bros. Music Show live disc which was recorded in December of '78 at the Cleveland Agora. This recording is a little more raw, but that's the way these live LP's were meant to sound. My brother and I saw the previous night's show in Youngstown at the Tomorrow Club. It was a great show. The four piece band (IMO) electrified that club. I also saw them on the Remain In Light tour. KILLER, KILLER SHOW! When TNOTBITH was finally released, it got tons of spins in the record store where I worked. They were a store favorite, anyways. When the expanded reissue came out, I played the hell out of that CD. One day, my office mate asked me something like, "In a building with thousands of CDs at our fingertips, why do you play the same one over and over?" I guess it was overkill. :--)
Does anyone know why the intro was lopped off Crosseyed and Painless? An odd decision I always thought. It’s only about a minute long and it would have just fitted on the cd. I always liked that slow groovy intro. Love this album though. In any configuration. The 1979 tracks are stunningly good. Stay Hungry is fantastically tight and the version of Memories Can’t Wait is arguably my favourite Heads track ever. I think the cd compilers missed a neat trick though - disc one should have ended with the fade out of the Psycho Killer intro, as disc two opens with the 1980 PK on steroids.
You're killin' me! npc145, it is now incumbent of you to tell me maybe one or two things about yourself that are not so great. How about a story of misfortune so I feel better?
It's unfortunate that the double CD is very loud, bright and unpleasant to listen to. It has great extra material but also excludes stuff from the original LP. A real head scratcher.
I first heard this album in the early 2000s, when I tracked down a sealed cassette copy and made myself a digital transfer! I was so proud of myself, and then like a year later Rhino came out with the expanded reissue. I should dig out my original transfer out though, at least to hear the original intro to "Crosseyed and Painless". (If I recall, there's some weirdness in the version of "Electricity" added to the 2CD reissue; Byrne's vocal abrupt moves from the center of the stereo spectrum to one side of the mix for a single line. This oddity isn't present on any version of the original Warner Brothers Music Show release that I've heard).
If it is a case vs studio/live, I LOVE Stop Making Sense, and prefer those versions (by a good mile), and they work very well, not only as stand alone audio, but also in the movie. They rock. I do like the studio album "Little Creatures", and I play it a lot. The River Oaks Theater here in Houston used to play the album all the time when waiting for a movie to start.
I was a fan of TH 20 years ago but now this is the only record of theirs I listen to. I don’t like the studio albums anymore, no idea why