More Songs About Buildings and Food explained

More Songs About Buildings and Food
Type:studio
Artist:Talking Heads
Cover:TalkingHeadsMoreSongsAboutBuildingsandFood.jpg
Border:yes
Released:[1]
Recorded:March–April 1978
Studio:Compass Point, Nassau
Genre:
Label:Sire
Producer:
Prev Year:1977
Next Title:Fear of Music
Next Year:1979

More Songs About Buildings and Food is the second studio album by the American rock band Talking Heads, released on July 14, 1978, by Sire Records. It was the first of three albums produced by collaborator Brian Eno, and saw the band move toward an increasingly danceable style, crossing singer David Byrne's unusual delivery with new emphasis on the rhythm section composed of bassist Tina Weymouth and her husband, drummer Chris Frantz.

More Songs established Talking Heads as a critical success, reaching number 29 on the US Billboard Pop Albums chart and number 21 on the UK Albums Chart. The album featured the band's first top-thirty single, a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River".

Artwork and title

The front cover of the album, conceived by Byrne and executed by artist Jimmy De Sana, is a photomosaic of the band comprising 529 close-up Polaroid photographs.[5] The album's rear cover shows "Portrait U.S.A.", the first[6] satellite color analog photomosaic of the United States from space, created by NASA and GE for National Geographic,[7] published in July 1976.[8] [9] In his 2020 memoir, Remain in Love, Frantz recalled that Byrne and Weymouth took the Polaroid photographs for the front cover on the roof of the loft building in Long Island City that Frantz and Weymouth lived in. Frantz wrote that he "later realized [the cover art] was 'heavily influenced' by Andrea Kovacs' work. We should have given her credit for that."[10]

Of the album title, Weymouth told Creem in a 1979 interview:

XTC frontman Andy Partridge later claimed, however, that he gave the title to Byrne.[11]

Release

More Songs About Buildings and Food was released on July 14, 1978. It peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. The album's sole single, a cover of the Al Green hit "Take Me to the River", peaked at number 26 on the pop singles chart in 1979. The single pushed the album to gold record status.[12]

Warner Music Group re-released and remastered the album in 2005, on its Warner Bros., Sire and Rhino Records labels in DualDisc format, with four bonus tracks on the CD side—"Stay Hungry" (1977 version), alternate versions of "I'm Not in Love" and "The Big Country", and the 'Country Angel' version of "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel". The DVD-Audio side includes both stereo and 5.1 surround high resolution (96 kHz/24bit) mixes, as well as a Dolby Digital version and videos of the band performing "Found a Job" and "Warning Sign". In Europe, it was released as a CD+DVDA two-disc set rather than a single DualDisc. The reissue was produced by Andy Zax with Talking Heads.

Reception

Writing for (1981), critic Robert Christgau said "Here the Heads become a quintet in an ideal producer-artist collaboration—Eno contributes/interferes just enough... Every one of these eleven songs is a positive pleasure, and on every one the tension between Byrne's compulsive flights and the sinuous rock bottom of the music is the focus".

More Songs About Buildings and Food was ranked at number four among the top "Albums of the Year" for 1978 by NME, with "Take Me to the River" ranked at number 16 among the year's top tracks.[13] In 2003, the album was ranked number 382 on Rolling Stones list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,[14] 383 in 2012,[15] and 364 in 2020.[16] It was ranked number 57 on Rolling Stones list of the greatest albums of 1967–1987.

It was ranked the 45th best album of the 1970s by Pitchfork in 2006. Reviewing the album for Pitchfork, Nick Sylvester said: "More Songs About Buildings and Food transformed the Talking Heads from a quirky CBGB spectacle to a quirky near-unanimously regarded 'it' band."[17]

Track listing

Note(*) Mixed at Mediasound Studios by Brian Eno and Ed Stasium

Personnel

Talking Heads

Additional musicians

Production

Charts

Year-end charts

Chart (1979)Position
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[22] 17
US Billboard 200 (RMNZ)[23] 49

Notes and References

  1. Web site: More Songs About Buildings and Food – Talking Heads. AllMusic. January 4, 2015. Ruhlmann. William.
  2. Book: Smith, Chris. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History: From arenas to the underground, 1974-1980. 2006. Greenwood Press. 978-0-313-33611-9. 226.
  3. Web site: Grimstad. Paul. What is Avant-Pop?. Brooklyn Rail. 1 October 2016.
  4. Book: Reynolds. Simon. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. 2005. Penguin. 163.
  5. Gimarc, George, Punk Diary, p. 148.
  6. Web site: Now & Then: The History of Portrait U.S.A. . landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov . Landsat Science . 26 October 2023 . 29 January 2015.
  7. Web site: World Pieces: America's 'Portrait' and the Environmental View of Landsat . whipplelib.hps.cam.ac.uk . . 26 October 2023 . en . 5 November 2020.
  8. Web site: Portrait U.S.A. (cartographic material) : the first color photomosaic of the 48 contiguous United States / produced by the National Geographic Society . catalogue.nla.gov.au . Catalogue, National Library of Australia . en.
  9. More Songs About Buildings and Food . 1978 . liner notes . Sire Records .
  10. Book: Frantz, Chris . Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina . 2020 . St. Martin's Press . 978-1-250-20922-1 . 1st . New York . 234, 236.
  11. Web site: Happy 40th: Talking Heads, MORE SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS AND FOOD . July 25, 2018 . July 29, 2020 . en-US . Rhino Records.
  12. Web site: More Songs About Buildings and Food – Talking Heads – Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards – AllMusic. William Ruhlmann. AllMusic. 4 January 2015.
  13. Web site: 1978 Best Albums And Tracks Of The Year. NME. October 10, 2016. November 25, 2016.
  14. 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: More Songs About Buildings and Food – Talking Heads. Rolling Stone. November 18, 2003. November 24, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20101220143633/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-19691231/more-songs-about-buildings-and-food-talking-heads-19691231. December 20, 2010. dead.
  15. 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Rolling Stone. May 31, 2012. September 2, 2019.
  16. 2020-09-22. The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 2021-06-24. Rolling Stone. en-US.
  17. Web site: The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s. Pitchfork. June 23, 2004. October 21, 2020. 6.
    • Web site: Hopper . Alex . Behind The Band Name: Talking Heads . . 26 October 2023 . 16 December 2022 . According to Frantz's 2020 memoir 'Remain in Love', the trio cycled through several possible names before landing on Talking Heads. Vogue Dots, Billionaires, Tunnel Tones and Videos were all considered, but thanks to the band's friend, Michael 'Wayne' Zieve, who would later write the lyrics to the 'More Songs About Buildings and Food' track 'Artists Only', Talking Heads held the winning ticket. According to Frantz, Zieve visited the group with a TV Guide featuring a list of jargon used by camera operators. Among the words and phrases was 'Talking Head,' which Zieve called the 'most boring but also the most informative format in TV.' He added, 'I think you should call your band Talking Heads.'.
    • Web site: Potter . Jordan . How Talking Heads got their name . faroutmagazine.co.uk . 26 October 2023 . 11 April 2023 . According to Frantz's 2020 memoir 'Remain in Love', the trio cycled through several possible names before landing on Talking Heads. Vogue Dots, Billionaires, Tunnel Tones and Videos were all considered, but thanks to the band's friend, Michael 'Wayne' Zieve, who would later write the lyrics to the 'More Songs About Buildings and Food' track 'Artists Only', Talking Heads held the winning ticket. According to Frantz, Zieve visited the group with a TV Guide featuring a list of jargon used by camera operators. Among the words and phrases was 'Talking Head,' which Zieve called the 'most boring but also the most informative format in TV.' He added, 'I think you should call your band Talking Heads.'.
    • Book: Frantz . Chris . Chris Frantz . Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina . 21 July 2020 . St. Martin's Publishing Group . 978-1-250-20923-8 . 26 October 2023 . en . google books.
    • Web site: Tom Tom Club . . 26 October 2023 . Tokyo . en . 2014 . Chris Frantz: His name was Wayne Zieve and he was from Chicago. He had also been at RISD and he read it in a TV Guide magazine. There was a glossary of television terminology and talking heads meant the least exciting but most informative format of programming, so we thought, 'Talking Heads.'.
    • Web site: Talking Heads . Artists Only (live) . . 26 October 2023 . . en . 1978 . Provided to YouTube by IIP-DDS; Artists Only (live) · Talking Heads; The Boarding House 1978; ℗ 1978 The Media Champ; Released on: 1978-09-16; Music Publisher: Copyright Control; Composer, Lyricist: David Byrne; Composer, Lyricist: Wayne Zieve; Auto-generated by YouTube.;.
    • News: Bell . Max . I Get Taken Over . 26 October 2023 . . More Dark Than Shark . July 28, 1979 . The best example of this on 'More Songs About Buildings And Food' was 'Artists Only', which Byrne didn't even write. Predictably, some of our brethren took exception to the line "I don't have to prove that I'm creative". "A guy called Wayne Zieve wrote the lyric on that. I don't know anything about it. He was crashing at our place [the Byrne and Harrison residence] and he used to scribble messages on bits of paper and leave 'em round the room. I just liked that one, so I wrote some music for it. Now he gets royalties, which spoils the effect somewhat..
  21. Book: Kent, David. David Kent (historian). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. illustrated. Australian Chart Book. St Ives, N.S.W.. 1993. 0-646-11917-6. 304.
  22. Web site: Top Selling Albums of 1979 — The Official New Zealand Music Chart. Recorded Music New Zealand. January 26, 2022.
  23. Web site: Billboard. 22 December 1979.

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