There is a system I’m using to work my way through these CDs, which should have given me Talking Heads’ first album, 77, at this point, but it’s fallen apart, so here we are at their second album, More Songs About Buildings And Food.
I seem to remember at the time having the impression that this album suffered from ‘second album syndrome’, but forty years on, I’m not so sure.
What isn’t apparent at the time is how an album fits into a band’s development, until you hear what follows it, and this is where More Songs sits. The impression listening now is a more angular sound, more space, perhaps fewer memorable songs, but a feel that links the more singalong 77, to the more ambitious Fear Of Music. The hand of Eno? It’s an uplifting, toe-tapping feel, which to me invites listening to the album as a whole unit, rather than picking out individual songs as highlights. So it’s perhaps fitting that the only single was the cover of Al Green’s Take Me To The River.
It’s an album I’ve neglected over the years, going to its predecessor and successor regularly, and that’s a shame. It stands up on its own terms, as an important brick in the Talking Heads wall.
4* - a great album, possibly overshadowed by what came before and after.
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