"More Songs About Buildings and Food", Talking Heads, 1978
Dia: 7
Mês: Abril
Ano: 2013
Ano: 2013
Co-produzido por Brian Eno.
Inicia-se aqui uma das relações artista/produtor mais profícuas da história da pop, materializada em três álbuns sublimes dos Talking Heads ("More Songs..., "Fear of Music" e "Remain in Light") e numa colaboração absolutamente fora de série com David Byrne: "My life in The Bush of Ghosts".
The Trouser Press Record Guide – Fourth Edition (Collier Books, 1991): The Talking Heads began a relationship with Brian Eno on their second album, essentially taking him on as a temporary fifth member. On More Songs About Buildings And Food (and the two succeeding LPs), they worked a sonic overhaul, at first adding elements to the basic framework and then ultimately subsuming the foundation into a wholly new approach. Here, the use of acoustic and electronic percussion fills previous spaces; the inclusion of Al Green's "Take Me to the River" indicated the band's deep interest in "black music" and provided them with their first glimpse of Top 40 popularity. The material isn't as startling fresh or satisfying as on the first LP, but some of the tracks work fine.
The A to X of Alternative Music (Continuum, 2004): By recording the band and feeding the result through his synthesizer, and then combining the original mix with the electronically enhanced one, Eno transformed the band's soulful groove, built around Weymouth's lead bass, into a soulful groove that sounded oddly removed from reality, and perfectly mirrored Byrne's songs and vocal performance, which were designed to question the role of the rock'n'roll singer as a spiritual channeller of ideas and energy. Byrne was taking the classic template of the rock shaman a la Jim Morrison, and turning it on its head, undermining the belief in the transcendence of the rock'n'roll experience by showing that the role of the enigmatic front-man could be hollow and one step removed from the purely spiritual connection that some might have believed. Clever punk, in a nutshell. More Songs About Buildings And Food was a suitably dour title for a collection of songs that Byrne was suggesting did exactly what it said on the tin.
The Rolling Stone Album Guide – Third Edition (Random House, 1992): Talking Heads (especially David Byrne) found a soulmate in producer Brian Eno – perhaps too kindred, after a while. Eno's organic electronic sounds and nontraditional approach to recording provided a solid framework for the group's rapidly expanding interplay on More Songs About Buildings and Food. Bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz pump up an increasingly complex rhythmic pulse while utility man Jerry Harrison fills in guitar and keyboard details. A triumphantly assured cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River" rounds a weirdly eloquent set of originals. Striking a perfect balance between art-rock and pop commerce, More Songs captures this resourceful band at a hypercreative, yet extremely accessible peak. ★★★★★
The Virgin Encyclopedia of Indie & New Wave (Virgin Books and Muze, 1998): More Songs About Buildings and Food was a remarkable work, its title echoing Talking Heads' anti-romantic subject matter. Byrne's eccentric vocal phrasing was brilliantly complemented by some startling rhythm work and the songs were uniformly excellent. The climactic "The Big Country", a satiric commentary on consumerist America, featured the scathing aside: "I wouldn't live there if you paid me". ★★★★
AllMusic: Brian Eno brought a musical unity that tied the album together, especially in terms of the rhythm section, the sequencing, the pacing, and the mixing. Where Talking Heads had largely been about David Byrne's voice and words, Eno moved the emphasis to the bass-and-drums team of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz; all the songs were danceable, and there were only short breaks between them. ★★★★★
The Guardian: This is black music bleached and scorched by the energy of punk, and the enervated chug of the Velvet Underground, against which strains David Byrne's unmistakably white, alienated yelp. ★★★★
Rolling Stone: The eclecticism of More Songs about Buildings and Food – its witty distillations of disco and reggae rhythms, its reconciliation of "art" and punk rock – is masterful. The music represents a triumph over diversity, while the words spell out defeat by disparities between mind and body, head and heart. ★★★★★
PopMatters: More Songs About Buildings and Food (its title a self-referential jab at "77 "and the sophomore album "syndrome") sounds like the work of a band that suddenly got it: the quirks and the tugs are more calculated, the twitching ends come together and fuse into one gyrating whole.
Ultimate Classic Rock: The album's cover, a photo mosaic of the band comprised of 529 Polaroids, showed their art-school training hadn't gone to waste. Neither the band's name nor the album's title appear on the cover – another risky decision, especially given the poor commercial showing of the debut. But people were still able to find the record: It peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard 200 and was eventually certified gold.
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