At long last, the Talking Heads have gotten into the business of remastering their albums. CD technology changed sometime in the late ’90s which is why old CDs such as all the Talking Heads CDs I bought in the ’80s sound so flat compared to newer CDs.
I’ve picked up remastered CDs by numerous jazz artists as well as a few rock bands that I especially like. Buying a remastered CD is like discovering a favorite album for the first time all over again. It’s one of the few times when you can truly relive the experience of discovering something new and wonderful.
Remastered CDs are always worth the money for any artist whose music is especially dense or that involves complex interplay between musicians because the biggest difference between remastered CDs and the originals is the separation of the instruments. John Coltrane claimed that you couldn’t tell if music was good or not until you’d listened to a record once for each instrument and followed just that instrument all the way through. A well done remastered CD makes that possible, opening windows into musicians’ playing and style that had previously remained difficult to penetrate.
Today, while running errands and listening to the remastered version of American Beauty by the Grateful Dead, I decided to stop in and buy the remastered Workingman’s Dead. I got to the store and there on the shelf was what I had waited for, lo these many years: remastered Talking Heads CDs.
They were all there: ’77, More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures, True Stories, Naked… Oh, embarrassment of riches!
What to do? I looked closer and saw that not only were all the albums remastered, but they included alternate takes and unfinished experiments. The CDs are all dual-discs meaning that they have a DVD side with videos and the original albums remastered in DVD 5.1 Dolby Surround. Holy crap, I would have to discipline myself and only purchase one. There was no choice. It would have to be Remain in Light.
I put it in the car and was immediately impressed by the clarity of “Born Under Punches.” Even better, I could for the first time discern the three guitars and follow each one individually, and this was in my car. When I got home, I played the DVD side and tried to clean the kitchen. Impossible. I had to sit down and listen to the whole album play through. I’ve known this album for twenty years. I’ve listened to it thousands of times and today, I really heard it for the first time.
Remain in Light is a dense, dark jam, and the remastered DVD version just opens up the album, separating the instruments so that each musician can be heard on his or her own contributing the whole. You can hear the interplay of multiple basses, you can follow Adrian Belew’s freakish guest-star guitar soaring in and out of the intricate rhythms laid down by David Byrne and Jerry Harrison. The drums and percussion complement each other rather than bleed together.
“Once in a Lifetime” is suddenly a whole new song, a thrilling jam of guitars and keyboards that swirl like bubbles rising in water, taking the listener into the blue again and revealing a world of sound hidden under the rocks and stones. I fell in love with this strange and wonderful song for the second time in my lifetime.
There are whispers and ghostly voices in the background on some tracks, shimmering curtains of sound that just couldn’t be heard before. “The Overload” is full of sonic texture and traded guitar riffs that were previously lost in the booming bass that once dominated the song. “Listening Wind” captivates and demands full attention; it is like watching a movie made of sound, conjuring images of deserts and rebels in small African towns.
Remain in Light is still a weird album combining African polyrhythms, late fusion era jazz-funk, paranoid post-punk guitar noise, and a new wave dance club vibe. It came out in late 1980 and still sounds fresh and original. Other artists spent much of the ’80s trying to catch up with this album long after the Talking Heads had moved off in different directions. Twenty-six years after its initail release, it comes back in all its swirling mad glory.
Here a twister comes. Here come a twister.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
[…] time favorite live album. It covers the Heads from their post-punk minimalism through the expanded Remain in Light version of the band, which is still one of the most intriguing and thrilling musical adventures […]