If they want to release new music more power to them. their legacy is secured. same for every legendary artist. sure there are a smattering of "experts" on the internet who say they will tarnish their legacy. But some forgettable or even awful reunion albums won't do that. the only thing that can really tarnish a legacy is a Bill Cosby-level scandal.
I'm a firm believer that the contributions of Weymouth, Frantz and Harrison are hugely underrated but this comment is just plain wrong. Byrne won an Academy Award for film scoring (Last Emperor), has been on the Simpsons, had a Billboard top 3 album in 2018 and his American Utopia Broadway show was the giant hit of its season just before the pandemic: David Byrne Has A Giant Broadway Hit On His Hands; Others Aren’t So Lucky You don't have to diminish one's achievements to uplift the other.
I also don't think David has had the same kind of goals for his solo career as he did with Talking Heads. Billboard-topping hit singles haven't exactly been his goal. He's taken on a number of projects that interest him. He seems very happy as a solo artist doing whatever he wants and choosing collaborators depending on what he wants to accomplish. He's been successful within the parameters he's established for himself. I don't think he wants any part of the band dynamic ever again, the interpersonal dynamics of the group aside.
American Utopia - 3 year sold out run on Broadway, won a Tony award turned into a film, successful run still going on HBO won a grammy for cast album
I certainly admire and appreciate artists who change their set each night or during a tour. If you're playing the same place more than once on a tour... I would expect it. That's just me.
Artists going solo from a huge band and having huge solo success over decades is a rarity. The Beatles and Genesis are two that stand out in my head, but most of the time the artists sound/style has already run its course with the band. Very few solo artists maintain decades of success as makers of new material, rather than legacy acts, irrspective of starting with a band or not.
I think I figured out the plot to the upcoming Indiana Jones Movie, as he travels the world searching for the Original Negative Film for the Stop Making Sense Movie.
The American Utopia album was genuinely one of the most refreshing things I'd heard in quite a while. And I think that was the critical consensus when it came out too. At the very least, Everybody's Coming to My House is a prime example of an absolutely top tier single, IMO
'Lazy' was a smash hit simgle in the UK and much of Europe. More people will know him for that song than for any of his Talking Heads or solo stuff.
American Utopia is a great album but its sales figures were not great compared to Speaking in Tongues, Stop Making Sense, and Little Creatures. A previous post touted the success of the tour for American Utopia... I saw the show because it delivered David singing the band's biggest hits!
Talking Heads' second third biggest US chart hits were Take Me To The River and Wild Wild Life, not played on that tour.
Update: the master is now a mixture of a few of the 1984 mixes and the 1999 mixes alongside the new bonus tracks so this will be a truly unique mix for the 2LP release. All newly remastered at Sterling.
Please say you're using the 1999 mix of "Psycho Killer" though, the edits on the 1984 mix always rubbed me the wrong way.
I also much much prefer the 1999 version (both to the 1984 mix and the original studio cut actually), bummer...
Different mixes; some are longer, some are shorter; some have fuller arrangements, others are more sparse.
And if you're not already confused enough, there's also the original b-side "Alternate / Acoustic Version" - which is NOT the same as the "Acoustic Version" included as a bonus track on the Brick reissue of the first album. In fact, I don't know if the original b-side version has ever been released digitally, though I'm sure somebody here will know.
If you're just asking about "Psycho Killer"... the 1984 album version has an entirely different drum machine backing from what you hear in the movie. The 1999 album used the movie version.
Doh! And I call myself a Talking Heads fan. Years ago I had the single, but the single broke (don’t ask) and I thought version on Brick was that version. I kinda knew it sounded different, I hadn’t heard the single acoustic version for a long time. I think I have a copy on cassette somewhere. Thanks for activating my OCD.
I only saw David Byrne live in 2009 on the Eno/Byrne songs tour. It was absolutely fantastic. I definitely need to watch American Utopia. I just haven't gotten around to it, although I loved all of the interviews that he's done about it. A reunion with the Heads makes no sense for David.
That’s because he is more of a performance artist now than a rock musician. It’s no longer just about the music, but the presentation. Although Stop Making Sense was a great concert/film, I think it killed his desire to be in a rock band. Even when he was touring for his DavidByrne album and he only had a 4 price band, he didn’t seem as comfortable as he did in the previous two tours. Jerry has been dying to perform as a rock star and you see he loved being a part of the band.
